


Crossfire

by 7PercentSolution



Series: Game Theory [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Sherlock, Case Fic, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:36:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 71,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7PercentSolution/pseuds/7PercentSolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just before the Scandal in Belgravia, Sherlock is back at Baker Street, but still recovering from rehab- and not too sure he wants to be a team player. John's trying to enforce the rules, and Mycroft is cheating behind their backs, as the three of them try to take on Moriarty and Irene, who have ideas of their own. Game On! </p>
<p>(Part Three of Game Theory- sequel to Collateral Damage and Side-lined, but will stand alone)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ambush

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: Crossfire is defined as gunfire from two or more directions crossing the same area; used also to refer to a situation in which two or more groups are fighting with each other, catching non-combatants in the middle.

James Alexander, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibilities for counter-terrorism at the Ministry of Defence, sat forward to catch the Prime Minister's Eye. He was young, enthusiastic and rising fast in the coalition parties' opinion, but at the moment, he looked a little nervous.

"Yes, Mr Alexander? You want to raise a point under any other business?" The COBRA meeting in Cabinet Room A was coming to a close, after a tense discussion about the latest situation in North Africa. The Prime Minister was already thinking about his diary commitments for the rest of the day, but he didn't want to be rude to one of his government's most promising young men. So he listened.

"Sorry, sir, to be the bearer of bad news, but I think while we're all here, we do need to discuss what happened during that perimeter incident at Thames House two weeks ago. Having an agent killed and then thrown on the doorstep of the Security Services, well, there's been no follow up discussion, and the cock-up really needs to be considered here."

The PM didn't hide his confusion. "Haven't been briefed on that; is it urgent?" The PM looked down the table at the man in a three piece suit, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. The PM then said to that same man, "Could you deal with the Minister's enquiry, please? I'm due at the French Embassy in…" he looked down at his watch, "…twenty five minutes. Won't do to be late; Entente Cordiale and all that, you know." He picked up his papers and made for the door. Two of the other six people in the room followed him out, but the other four stayed seated, curious about what would happen next. There were murmurs of quiet conversation.

Mycroft Holmes stood and impaled James Alexander with a stony stare.

"Minister." Silence fell in the room. "I think you and I need to have a word…in private." The words were impeccably polite, but had just the gentlest trace of menace beneath the surface. The younger man visibly paled, and then nodded. He stood up and reluctantly followed the older man from the room.

oOo

The first attack had happened a few hours earlier, during an early morning discussion in the office of the Cabinet Minister, thankfully vacant, apart from the Permanent Secretary.

"I'm sorry, Holmes, but he's got a real bee in his bonnet about it, and won't let it go. I'm going to have to tell him something. We've been raked over the coals in the House of Commons on the too cosy relationship between Number Ten and the Press. Now this blasted Jason Wright thing. I have to give him a straight answer. Did you or did you not invoke a D Notice to stop the papers from covering the story? "

Mycroft glared. "As if…"

The Permanent Secretary nodded. "Well, that's what I said. You of all people wouldn't need to stoop to such a blunt instrument, after all. But, did you speak to the editor of the Evening Standard about it? By God, if they did get a hold of the story of a London taxi dumping a body on the steps of Thames House, then I have no doubts that the Russian proprietor would love to have it splashed on the front page. After all, he was ex-KGB."

Mycroft just glared at the man again. "You know I hate repeating myself, Brian. Just think it through. Why would I need to speak personally to someone about this?"

The senior civil servant smirked. "I know, it's preposterous. That's what I  _said_. But you know politicians; they just don't understand that you would never be so…unsubtle."

Mycroft put his cup of tea back down on the minister's desk. "So, you will manage your minister better next time, Brian?"

The Permanent Secretary smiled. "Of course; just giving you a heads up."

As Mycroft Holmes left the room, he knew that whatever words had just been exchanged, the truth was that a faint aura of fallibility now followed him down the corridor like a shadow. He was still thinking about that in the car, when his PA told him that John Watson had called, but said he'd deal with whatever it was he wanted to talk to Mycroft about. This provoked a sigh from the elder Holmes. He was having a bad enough day not to have to have his brother stir things up even more. "I'll return his call after the COBRA and liaison meetings, my dear. Unless he calls back, it can wait until then."

oOo

It was the third strike that drew blood. A meeting in the diary for weeks- the security liaison at the US Embassy in London came over routinely from Grosvenor Square for a regular round up over tea at 4pm with his opposite Number at MI6, and Mycroft was always in attendance. Only this time, when Mycroft walked into the usual conference room at Vauxhall Cross, he found the elegant figure of MI6 DG Elizabeth Robertson sitting where he expected an overweight middle-aged Deputy Head of London Station, and across from her was the Assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs, a prickly Texan, with whom Mycroft had crossed swords before. By his side was the Director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, who had crawled off a red eye flight from Dulles by the look of it.

He nodded his greetings, as if he had been expecting them. "Elizabeth, Mr Donaghue, Stephen, to what do I owe the honour?"

It was Elizabeth Robertson who spoke first. "Mycroft, please have a seat. These gentlemen have a few questions that they feel need answering rather urgently. Something about one of our MOD codes going missing, and how it poses a threat to a joint operation that we've been working together on."

By the time Mycroft emerged from that meeting three hours later, the Americans' concerns had been assuaged, MI6's Director General was feeling a little more reassured, and on the surface, things appeared to have been smoothed over, and the meeting broke up with amicable smiles.

As soon as he was back in his government car, however, Mycroft's smile vanished, and if he held the handle of his umbrella with more ferocity than was needed, it was only his PA who saw it, and knew exactly what it meant. Her boss was rattled. Seriously. Deeply annoyed. Three strikes within a single day; it wasn't co-incidence.

"Is there anything I can do, Sir?" Her concern would be evident but not intrusive, as she kept her eyes on the blackberry screen.

There was silence in the car as it made its way across Vauxhall Bridge and up Horseferry Road. Finally Mycroft spoke. "Sherlock had better get well quickly, my dear. I don't think Moriarty will wait much longer for round two to begin. Has Watson called back again?"

She checked her phone. "No, sir. But surveillance reports that Dr Esther Cohen showed up at Baker Street just before 4pm, and hasn't left yet. Do you want to head there now?"

"Yes."

She leaned forward and gave instructions to the driver.

Mycroft did not speak again for the rest of the journey. That worried her more than almost anything else he could have done.


	2. Breakout

**_Ten hours earlier…_ **

John watched out the window from the second floor of the clinic as the dawn slowly came up over the line of trees to the east. He'd not slept at all. The previous day's confrontation kept going round and round in his head all night, like a YouTube clip on perpetual replay. This was no simple sibling spat. Sherlock and Mycroft fought viciously this time, forcing John to step in and try to negotiate a ceasefire before the two of them destroyed each other.

He lifted the cup of tea to take a tentative sip, and watched the steam rise, misting a patch onto the glass.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. A quick glance raised a grimace.  _Mycroft- he's up early_. He took a deep breath, and then let a little smile appear at the memory of Sherlock's first description of the man whom he later introduced as his brother, _the most dangerous man you'll ever meet._ He should have added,  _present company excepted._

"Good morning, Doctor Watson."

John swallowed his mouthful of tea.

"I hope I'm not disturbing your breakfast?"

"Get to the point, Mycroft." John tried not to let his worries show. If the elder Holmes was ringing at this hour, then he might be re-thinking something they had agreed yesterday, and John did not want to re-open negotiations.

"Oh dear, bad night, was it?" The urbane tone did little to disguise the slightly superior air.

"Well, what would  _you_  know about restless nights, Mycroft? I'm sure you enjoy the sleep of the righteous." John did not hide his disquiet.

"Rest assured, John, I am not seeking a change in our…understanding. This is merely a courtesy call. A car will be arriving in the next twenty minutes to return you and my brother to Baker Street. I've taken the precaution of putting Sherlock's coat and scarf in the car; it wouldn't do for him to catch cold."

"Is that fraternal concern for a man recovering from pneumonia, Mycroft, or just another reminder to Sherlock of how much control you have over him?"

This time there was a soft sigh in reply from Mycroft. "My goodness,- you  _really_  did have a bad night, if you are so willing to think the worst."

"Don't. Just… don't…. I'm between a rock and hard place here, Mycroft- a little consideration on your part would not go amiss. Don't pretend you're concerned about my sleeping habits."

"Very well. I am fully aware of the consequences of your actions yesterday. I won't remind you again that they were  _your_  choice. I intend to hold you to them, and to require Sherlock's compliance as well."

"As if I needed reminding. Goodbye, Mycroft." John ended the call and resumed his tea drinking.

That was the Mycroft John knew. The earlier polite concern was just…smokescreen. After three years of watching the Holmes brothers fight, John believed he had learned most of what he needed to know about them. Whatever words might be said, there was always a line of subtext running. It was worse than watching a foreign film.

After almost a month looking after Sherlock in the rehabilitation clinic, yesterday John finally lost his temper. First, he accused Mycroft of being too arrogant to learn to trust him and Sherlock, and then he turned the same scathing anger on Sherlock, berating him for constantly abusing the trust of those who wanted to give it to him. "I won't choose sides between you, but I will make sure you two work together. That means you both play to  **my**  rules. Is that a deal?"

He'd told them they were idiots for wasting energy fighting each other when they should be focusing on their common enemy- Moriarty. Maybe it was his audacity in telling them a few home truths; maybe it was just because his anger since the pool incident finally boiled to the surface. But, eventually, both Sherlock and then Mycroft had agreed to his terms.

John pinched the bridge of his nose, and tried to rest his eyes for a moment. He sighed. The past six weeks had taken a dreadful toll on his stamina and sense of well-being. Watching Sherlock come apart at the seams after confronting Moriarty at the pool cost enough of John's soul. But, pulling Sherlock through the physical recovery of his disastrous attempt to take on Moriarty on his own was even worse. Dealing with his friend's depression and the agitation of drug withdrawal complicated by threats of a sectioning by the doctors- well, if anybody had told him what that was going to be like, he might have thought twice about volunteering to accompany Sherlock to the clinic.

And yet, he knew that if he had not come, then Sherlock would not be walking out of the clinic today. And that made it worth the effort- _provided everyone abides by the rules._  That was the deal he'd cut with the two Holmes brothers. The burden of that promise lay heavily last night, and was still there this morning.

Playing peacemaker was something John did. Starting with his father and sister, following her announcement about her sexual orientation, he'd been the calm voice trying to get people to deal with reality. At medical school and then in the army, John was able to leverage the goodwill that people tended to give him into a chance to resolve disputes amicably.

But, trying to do so between the Holmes brothers required a whole new level of peace-making. Either one of them could run ten circles around him intellectually, and neither one of them could remotely be called emotionally intelligent when it came to their own relationship. Both had the power to damage each other fatally, and that would cost him personally. He valued his life with Sherlock. But after the pool incident and what happened after between Moriarty and Sherlock, he knew that nothing would ever be quite the same. John felt exposed, vulnerable, right in the middle of a battlefield over which he had no control, where he might get seriously caught in the cross fire.

When Mycroft left the clinic yesterday after John negotiated Sherlock's release, the doctor had promised that he would be able to enforce the rules.  _As if_. As if he could ever tell Sherlock what to do and expect it to be followed. Sherlock was so desperate to escape the clinic that he would have agreed to anything, and John knew it. So did Mycroft. In a way, the elder Holmes was throwing in the towel, and recognising that keeping Sherlock out of harm's way was turning out to be even more harmful than letting him out.

John hoped that the elder Homes had finally realised that trying to beat the consulting criminal on his own wasn't working either. While Sherlock and John had been sitting on the side-lines, Mycroft's plot against Moriarty failed- rather spectacularly, with a dead agent thrown out of a speeding taxi onto the steps of MI5. The Irishman's gauntlet had been thrown back in the face of the British Government. Questions were now being asked about Mycroft's network; was there a leak, a weakness being exploited? The spotless image of power surrounding him was tarnished. Criticisms were being voiced and listened to in the corridors of power. How many of those were made by people in Moriarty's web of dark angels was hard to guess.

Mycroft eventually accepted John's compromise. "We live in dangerous times, Sherlock. If you are prepared to abide by John's terms, then I will agree to let you out."

John had pressed him for the other part of the deal. "You'll keep us both in the loop, Mycroft. We need to work together if we are to stand a chance against Moriarty. If Sherlock agrees not to go after Moriarty on his own, then you need to agree, too. Share intelligence." If the grip on the handle of his umbrella was tighter than normal, it was a sign of how reluctant Mycroft was. Eventually, he nodded. But at a price- "The same applies to you, Sherlock. No playing on your own."

The other ground rules were agreed: Sherlock had to let his injuries heal and recover fully from the pneumonia before taking any cases that involved leaving the flat. That had kept John awake for half the night. His previous attempts to entice Sherlock to sleep and eat more regularly were what a concerned friend would do- and he had not pushed it. He might be a doctor, but he was Sherlock's flatmate and friend first, and a friend's advice was routinely ignored.

Now the balance between the two men was….disturbed. During his rehabilitation, Sherlock accepted John's role at the clinic more as a doctor, as his patient advocate, and it implied a dependence that would rankle with the younger man as he recovered. Knowing him, John expected Sherlock to be particularly annoying and rebellious, just for the sake of it. Their friendship would be tested if John tried to enforce the rules and keep Sherlock from _The Work_. He wondered how long he'd be able to manage it. That had kept him up the other half of the night.

And there were hidden rules, too, secrets that might strain the friendship even more. Before Sherlock's injuries, Mycroft declared to John that he would be personally vetting cases both through Scotland Yard and private client approaches through the website, to make sure that Moriarty was not involved. John had to decide whether to tell Sherlock that fact or to keep it secret. Even before he was well enough to undertake crime scene work, Sherlock would resent interference of this kind. John could just hear the outraged comment, "how  _dare_  he tell me what I can do or can't do!?" There would be skirmishes ahead between the two Holmes brothers as John tried to keep the peace.  _And both of them won't stop to turn their guns on me, if I fail to deliver._  He sighed, again.

 _And all this assumes that maniac Irishman stays out of range._  If Moriarty had other plans, then the whole thing might come to pieces under the strain anyway. John did not hold out much hope that if the consulting criminal decided to try again, the fragile ceasefire would hold.  _There are going to be casualties._  As a soldier, he knew that. As a doctor and a friend, he feared it, too.


	3. First Skirmish

 

John looked down fondly at the Belstaff coat and the blue scarf just handed to him by the driver of the government car. There was something comforting in seeing them again, even to John. Sherlock's attachment to the coat was almost obsessional. Nothing would signal to him more that he was going home than being given the coat. Perhaps John had been unfair on Mycroft; it might well be the best kind of peace-offering he could make to his brother.

John went back upstairs to wake Sherlock. As he opened the door to the room, he was relieved to find that the door had not been locked overnight. Sherlock was sitting, fully dressed, on the edge of the bed, gazing through the window. There was a breakfast tray lying untouched on the bedside table. Sherlock was swinging his leg impatiently. He too would have seen the car's arrival. He turned to look at John, with the slightest of smiles on the right side of his face.

"So, he hasn't reneged yet?"

That brought an answering smile from John and a firm "No, and I don't expect him to. Are you ready to go back home?"

Sherlock hopped off the bed, and bent to lift a small soft-sided bag of his things. He reached for the coat and scarf, but John did not release them.

"Wait a sec, Sherlock. Before we go anywhere, I need to hear it.  _You_  haven't changed  _your_  mind, have you? You will do what you promised?"

"That was then, this is now, John. Let's go." The smile had blossomed into a full smirk.

That glib answer just lit a fuse behind John's tired eyes. "No. Sorry, not good enough." The doctor backed up and shut the door, leaning against it and crossing his arms around the coat. He set his jaw and looked at the taller man.

Sherlock looked at him with a startled surprise.

John just continued. "This is me, saying 'no'. We're going nowhere unless you tell me now that the rules you agreed to yesterday not only apply today, but that they will continue to apply until such time as  _I_  think you are fit enough to take on case work."

"John." There was reproach in that tone.

"Yes, Sherlock." It was simply said, with patience, with a look that the younger man would recognise, one of affection but also of total certainty.  _I will not be moved on this._

The silence dragged on, until Sherlock coughed once and tried to stifle another. Eventually, he asked quietly, "Why does it matter?"

"We had this conversation yesterday. I distinctly remember you being in the room. Don't tell me that magnificent mind palace of yours somehow deleted the most important conversation you've had for months, if not years."

"What you said was for Mycroft's benefit."

"No, it wasn't."

Sherlock glared at him, and dropped the bag.

"That look won't work on me. If I'm more afraid of Moriarty than I am of Mycroft, then I am certainly not going to be afraid of you."

Now the taller man just looked a little hurt, and confused.

"Yes, I know, it's hard to take it all in. The flatmate you like to dismiss routinely as an idiot, as just 'your blogger', really does have to be paid some mind. If you don't, you'll end up back here."

Now the suspicion flared in Sherlock's eyes. "You've finally succumbed to Mycroft's bribery then? Joined the conspiracy?" This was almost spat out. The brunet began to pace in the room, his body language telegraphing his agitation.

"Shut up, Sherlock." It was said gently, yet firmly. "You  _know_  I am on your side. Stupid remarks like that are not going to get you out the door any faster. And don't think that it will be simply be 'business as usual' when we get back to Baker Street either. You know that if you break the rules  _you_  committed to uphold, you'll end up back here. "

"Why would you do that?"

"Because I'm your friend, and friends look out for each other."

"Is that what you're doing now, ' _looking out for me'_?"

"Yeah, because you don't seem willing or able to do so at the moment."

His pacing stopped long enough for him to shoot a sour look at the doctor. "Is this permanent then?"

"No. Why should it be? Are you planning not to make a full recovery?"

Sherlock just huffed his annoyance. "I've recovered enough now."

"No, you're not. And I have the medical degree here, not you."

The tall brunet just put his hand up into his hair and pulled at it in frustration. "Oh,  _HELL_. Whatever it bloody takes, just let's get out of here, now!" Then, as if on cue, he started to cough repeatedly, struggling to get it under control. Finally, he took a deep breath and held it, letting it out slowly, back in charge. The whole time, he had his back to John, as if that would conceal some of how much the dregs of the pneumonia were annoying him.

"I'm still waiting, Sherlock."

There was a sigh. "Right. Then whatever you say I have to do in terms of eating, sleeping and any other activity too boring and tedious to even mention let alone contemplate actually doing, I will do. There. Are you satisfied? Now let's go before my brain rots even more." He stopped his pacing just long enough to bend to pick up the case again.

John waited. Sherlock now turned to face the door and incidentally, John, who stood in front of it. They locked eyes –dark blue to grey green. The truculent look in the latter softened for just a moment. "John, I  _promise_."

Without another word, John handed him the coat, turned and opened the door.


	4. Re-Group

The journey back to Baker Street was silent. Sherlock seemed lost in his own thoughts. He kept his eyes closed. John knew why.

Once, in the back of a taxi, he'd commented, "I don't know how you do that, Sherlock. You're always looking at your phone, on the internet or whatever. I can't read in a car like that; it makes me feel sick."

Sherlock hadn't looked up from his phone as he answered, " _Not_  looking at my phone when I'm in the back of a car makes me feel sick, John. All that … _useless data_  …out there." He'd waved his hand vaguely toward the window, still keeping his eyes focussed on the phone screen. "Too much, too fast. Makes me feel dizzy and nauseated. By focusing on the phone, I can block out the extraneous view. The only other alternative is looking at you or talking to you- which I do sometimes, you know. I don't  _always_  ignore you."

But today was definitely not one of those occasions. Sherlock's phone was in the same place where his laptop had been for the past month- untouched, gathering dust on the kitchen table at the flat. So, now in the car, silence reigned. Even before the countryside gave way to the suburbs ringing London, John found his eyes growing heavy. Somewhere outside the M25, he fell asleep.

oOo

"We've arrived, sir." For a moment, when John first woke to those words, he expected to find himself back in Afghanistan. It was the 'sir' that triggered that. He grimaced as his eyes opened to find himself in the back of the car. He stretched and rubbed the back of his neck to wake himself up. Beside him, Sherlock was still. His eyes were open, but fixed on the back of the seat in front of him, dull and unseeing eyes. That worried John.

"Sherlock? We're here." John hesitated to touch Sherlock, as he knew his friend loathed physical contact. But there was no response to his voice, so he risked it.

Sherlock visibly flinched and drew away from John, pushing himself instinctively into the far car door, defensively.

John instantly removed the hand he placed on the taller man's arm, but he could not stop himself from expressing his concern. "Sherlock, what's wrong?"

At that, Sherlock seemed to snap out of it. He looked around and realising that the car had stopped outside 221B Baker Street; he opened the door and half climbed, half fell out onto the street, just managing to stay upright.

By the time John fumbled in the car boot to get Sherlock's case, his own, his laptop and the briefcase with Sherlock's medical files out, his flatmate had unlocked the front door and disappeared inside. Sherlock was nearly at the top of the stairs before Mrs Hudson emerged from her flat with a big cheery "Hello, boys! It's so good to have you back!" She came down the hall and looked at John, and then up the stairs, as Sherlock did not reply but carried on up and through the door to the flat.

"Oh," Mrs Hudson's concerned look followed Sherlock up the stairs. "Is he alright?"

John gave her a reassuring smile. "On the mend, honestly, Mrs Hudson. Just needs a little peace and quiet, I think." John just knew that Sherlock was not in the mood for being fussed over, or having to deal with the social niceties.

"Can I bring you up some coffee and cake? Fresh baked this morning, to celebrate your homecoming?"

He nodded, and trudged up the steps carrying the various cases, bags and stuff. By the time he struggled into the living room, he saw that Sherlock had already hung up his coat and scarf. The tall brunet was now just standing still. One hand down, touching the table between the two windows overlooking Baker Street, his eyes closed; it was as if he was  _feeling_  the place.

A moment passed. Then a deep breath that ended in a cough. "She's  _cleaned._ " The reproach was evident in Sherlock's tone of voice.

"Yeah, well, I imagine the place needed a good dusting after a month." John looked around the room. To his eye, there was little evidence of any serious cleaning; it was the usual shambles.

"It reeks of furniture polish. And she's put bleach down the kitchen sink, too."

"Sherlock, if you don't want to upset her, you'd better go away until she's delivered the coffee and cake. Why don't you take your stuff into your bedroom and get changed into something more comfortable?"

"Just…explain it to her for me, will you, John?" The tall brunet waved his hand vaguely at the word "it", knowing that John would understand, and deal with Mrs Hudson. John had a feeling that Sherlock's re-entry into 'normal' life would take some serious intermediation.

He turned to his own pile of stuff. In the briefcase with the medical files, John also knew there were prescription scripts for the variety of drugs that Sherlock as still on. Two different antibiotics still had almost a week to run, and would be renewed, if that cough was anything to go by. Two different kinds of inhaler, to help if the cough became too much to bear.

Doctor Cohen might have been dismissed and sent packing by Mycroft, but she'd left John with some "useful if…" prescriptions. She knew Sherlock's post-rehabilitation needs more than anyone else, so he accepted the packet of diazepam to stop anxiety and agitation. "Of course, getting him to actually take it is the hard part." She'd also given him her contact details. "In case you need an opportunity to talk anything through with me. I know I am no longer retained, but that doesn't stop me from caring, John. I've been trying to treat him for twenty years."

Mrs Hudson arrived carrying a tray, sweeping into the kitchen with it. "The cake is still warm; Lemon drizzle, which, according to Sherlock, is his favourite." She started to pour John a cup of the coffee. "He's not going to come out, is he? Well, I don't mind, as long as you tell me he's alright, John. He's probably tired from the journey."

John gratefully took the cup from her and drowned himself in the scent of freshly ground coffee. "Mrs Hudson, you are a lifesaver. God only knows why no medical facility ever seems to know how to produce a good cup of coffee or tea."

Although there were two cups on the tray, she didn't pour the second one. "I won't stay. But, I thought you'd like to know that as soon as Mr Holmes rang me last night to tell me you were coming home, I made sure that I added some things to this morning's shopping list." She opened the fridge, and gestured for John to take a look. Inside the fridge he could see all the basics- milk, butter, eggs, juice. Some veg and fruit, too, by the look of it.

"And, I also decided that you need to at least start with a clean fridge, before Sherlock mucks it up with all his horrible stuff, so I thoroughly disinfected it and the kitchen sink last night."

"Mrs Hudson, you are  _not_  our housekeeper, so you really need to stop spoiling us." He tried to look stern.

She just laughed. "Let me. I've missed you two, you know. The place doesn't seem right without the sounds you make. I've found myself wishing for a violin in the middle of the night, or you two giggling on the stairs when you come back from some horrific murder. Odd, the things we miss."

He smiled as she turned back toward the stairs. "Tell him he can come out now. I won't leap out and mother him, I promise. Just tell me if you need anything."

When Sherlock did emerge five minutes later, he'd changed into his favourite pyjamas and blue dressing gown. John frowned at the bare feet. The heat was on in the flat, but it was never the warmest. Sherlock walked straight into the living room, didn't even look at john, and flopped onto the sofa, stretching out the full length and closed his eyes. As he brought his hands together under his chin in his characteristic 'don't-you-dare-disturb-me-I'm-thinking' pose, John realised something else was missing, too.

"Sherlock, where's the wrist band? Did you cut it off?"

A frown.

"Sorry, but I need the answer now." He walked over and stood only a foot away from where Sherlock's head lay on the cushion. He knew from past experience that this would annoy Sherlock, who would find it hard to ignore him.

"I don't need a medical wrist band. I am no longer at the clinic." He gave the final 'c' in the word an exaggerated K sound- 'clinicK'. From past experience, John knew that it meant Sherlock was irritated. He didn't open his eyes.

John sighed. "Wrong. That medic-alert band is to ensure that no one treats you without realising you're on naltrexone. If something happens and you can't tell emergency staff, they could kill you by administering an opiod. You'd go into immediate withdrawal, with serious complications. You  _have_  to wear a medi-alert device. If you don't like the plastic one, I can get a metal one, or something to wear a tag around your neck."

"There is no purpose to keeping me on it, John. I am not going to 'relapse' and I am not dealing with cravings, so it's pointless. It's a simple process to remove the pellet; you can do it here."

"No."

Sherlock sighed. "It makes me feel…weird. I really need to get rid of it."

"No. And you being an idiot about medication? That reminds me." John dug into his case and took out two plastic pill containers. He went into the kitchen, came back with a slice of cake, a glass of water and two pills.

"Sit up, eat this, and then take the pills. In that order."

One grey-green eye opened and looked at him in slight disbelief. "I'm not some infantry private you can order about, John."

John sat down on the other side of the coffee table and glared at him. "No, I didn't need to do this in Afghanistan, because they never argued back."

Sherlock huffed, derision in the very sound. "Well, that says something about the average intelligence of the British army foot soldier."

"Okaay, let's explain this in words that even you will get. First, taking a pill lying down is harder on your throat, so likely to make you cough. Not a good idea with three broken and two cracked ribs still healing. Eating the cake will put something into your stomach so the antibiotic doesn't irritate the gut lining. And you are going to take the pills, without arguing."

Sherlock opened the other eye now, so both were focused on the cake, the water and the pills. "I wasn't questioning the  _process_ , John, just the  _purpose._  I've been on antibiotics for weeks; they've done what they needed to do. Now they are just making me feel weird. Time to stop."

John just shook his head. "I'm not going to do this. We are not going to argue every time it comes to take your medicine. You promised. You will do it, without a debate. Those are the rules." He got up and went back into the kitchen to pour himself a second cup of coffee. He spent a little bit of time getting his temper under control.

"Are you pouring one for me?" This was said by a man whose mouth was obviously full of cake, from the sound of it. John smiled wryly and pulled over the second cup. "Only if you've got the pills down by the time I get it to you." The next few weeks promised to be…challenging.


	5. Infiltration

Sebastian Moran watched cautiously, as Jim Moriarty prowled the flat. To say his boss was wound up tighter than a drum would be an understatement. The pressure had been building for the past month, and the ex-Army Special Ops officer figured today was the day it was going to finally blow. He had hoped to avoid being in the blast radius, but Jim had summoned him to the flat this morning, "for a chat, my tiger, just a chat." Moran knew from past experience that the oily charm being laid on this thickly was meant ironically.

Those black Irish eyes were darting around the flat now, a disgruntled frown twisting his lips. For once, Moriarty looked less than immaculate. He had not shaved this morning, and a shadow of stubble marred his youthful face. He looked like he had been up half the night, and didn't give a damn whether Seb knew it or not.

"Can I get you some coffee?"

Jim whipped his head around to glare at Seb. "Do I look like I need a stimulant? What in that tiny little brain of yours could ever mistake this" and he gestured down at himself, his rumpled clothes, "as the sign of someone in need of caffeine?"

Seb just said mildly. "Well, I can always make decaffeinated, you know."

The younger man closed the distance between him and Seb in two strides, grabbed the shirt of the military man in his fist and yanked him closer to his staring eyes. "Don't get smart with me, sniper. I don't pay you to do anything other than put bullets in the bodies of my enemies. If I let you share some of my space, be grateful. Just DON'T PUSH YOUR LUCK."

This last threat was breathed right into Seb's face. He added to the list of firsts, first time he'd ever been this close to Moriarty in the morning before he'd brushed his teeth.  _Yes, I think he's just about to explode with boredom. Or kill someone just for the fun of it._

"You asked me to come over, so what can I do for you?" it was said as neutrally as possible. Moran knew better than to provoke Jim when he was in a mood like this. _I'd be better off poking a cobra with a stick._

Jim released him and then just glared. "I decided today's the day to get that iceberg in Whitehall to move a little faster. It's taken four whole weeks for Sherlock to recover from his little Russian lesson. I need him to get out of jail now, not pass Go and get straight back into the game. I'm getting bored witless by the wait, so I decided to crank things up and put some heat under Frosty, see if I can melt him a bit. If I'm lucky, his attention will be distracted long enough for little brother to do his great escape act.

The Irishman now sneered. "But, wait, you don't have the brains to be able to help me with that, so I must have had another reason to ask you over." It was delivered with venom. "Yes, now I remember. Have you got the Baker Street set up done?"

Moran smiled. "Yeah- you asked me to keep an eye on the place. Holmes' people went in there three days ago, swept for bugs, ripped out their old ones and put in a whole new set.- latest generation stuff. I got in ten minutes after they left, glitched the system just long enough to plant the piggy-back relay on one of theirs. Took less than a minute. Had to lay low for a day as they took a good look again, to make sure the system was working OK, but no evidence yet that they thought it was anything other than a teething problem. When I linked it back up live this morning, what did I see? Baby brother and his pet are back in residence. They got in yesterday. So, do you want to take a look?"

Jim turned and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. "Yeah, I fecking would, at that. Cheer me up, no end. Home movies, yes. Brought to me live from the Baker Street studios." He giggled. " _Holmes_  movies...Seb, set up the link to the big screen here, and I'll get some popcorn!"

Moran busied himself with the technical stuff, while he heard Moriarty rummaging about in the kitchen. The smell of toast and fresh coffee emerged just as he got the big screen cabled up to the USB port on the laptop.

Jim emerged with tray of orange juice, toast with butter and jam, a cup of coffee. Setting it down on a side table, he dragged over the white leather lounger and slipped into it. "Decided on Breakfast TV; somehow, popcorn at this hour seemed wrong. We'll leave that for the late show."

Moran noticed that there was only a single cup, and a single plate. Jim saw him notice, and sighed. "Oh, go on. Fix yourself something, and sit behind me. I won't stop my mechanic from enjoying the fruits of his labours. Just don't distract me. But, before you disappear into the kitchen, turn it on will you? I've been waiting a month for this premier."

Moran tapped the keypad as he went by. The 43 inch screen came to life. Black and white, a little grainy, but a decent picture. The surveillance camera had been placed somewhere high up on the bookshelf beside the fireplace, pointed out toward the far wall. It had a wide-angle lens, and Jim could see the top of both of the chairs by the fire at the bottom of the picture, a bit of the sliding doors into the kitchen, and then across the room to the sofa- which was  _occupied_.

Jim sat forward. A bundle of blankets and a duvet nearly hid the occupant, but dark tousled curls could be seen spread across a pillow.  _Oh, bless the saints! How kind of you to sleep in here so I can see you, instead of hiding in that back bedroom of yours._  He took a long sip of coffee, and kept watch, a slightly feral smile on his lips.

oOo

John slowly came awake. For a split second, he did that thing most army men did- tried to figure out exactly where he was before he opened his eyes. And by the feel of the bed beneath him, the scent of the sheets and the sounds of London outside his window, he knew he was home. Memory started to re-boot with the details of the return and their first afternoon and evening back at Baker Street.

Once Mrs Hudson had left the coffee and cake behind, Sherlock had scarcely budged for the rest of the day from the sofa. He'd been silent, too, apart from coughing. When John put food down onto the coffee table at lunchtime, Sherlock had sighed, but eaten it. He'd drunk the water, the cups of tea, and taken the pills, without a word. Twice John had tried to get him to talk, but the tall brunet did not reply. He spent most of the afternoon in the "thinking" mode, apart from a brief session on his laptop. That had ended abruptly when a coughing fit took Sherlock's attention away from the screen. John eventually handed Sherlock one of the inhalers, which earned him a filthy look, but reluctant compliance seemed to do the trick and the coughing slowly eased.

"You need to sit up more, Sherlock, lying horizontal allows the secretions to collect. It's actually  _good_ to cough it up _._ "

After a supper of pasta and salad, ordered in from Angelo's ( _You're back! This is wonderful news. How is Sherlock? Can I fix him something special tonight?)_ , John watched some television- a documentary on Africa, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, but drifted off during the current affairs programme that followed. When he woke up and looked over at Sherlock, John realised he wasn't watching the TV, just lying there with his hands steepled beneath his chin. His eyes were open, but not looking at anything other than the ceiling.

"Sherlock, I need to go to bed. So do you. The heating's gone off; it's getting cold in here, so you need to move to the bedroom."

"No point… not sleepy."

"Doesn't matter. You'll be warmer and better off in there. So move it."

Once he'd got Sherlock settled in bed, he made sure that he took the last dose of pills for the day, and left the inhaler on the bedside table, along with a glass of water, and a box of tissues. Then he went upstairs, crawled into his own bed, and slept like he was dead for almost thirteen hours.

He was in the middle of a slow, luxurious stretch when the other memory kicked in.  _Sherlock. Thirteen hours since I last saw him._  That got John out of bed and into his dressing gown in seconds. He'd managed to get his slippers onto his feet by the fourth step down, and then was through the shut door into Sherlock's bedroom.

It's empty. "Shit!" No, wait; don't panic. The top sheet, duvet and blankets are missing, as is one pillow. Not all is lost, as John backs out of the room at speed and bolts down the hall into the living room, where he spots the bundle of bedclothes on the sofa, and lets out the breath he's been holding for too long.

oOo

Moriarty started to get bored after five minutes of watching Sherlock sleep. "This is worse than Big Brother. At least there the viewer gets to watch them play games." Then Sherlock stirred a bit, pulled the duvet over his head and coughed. The sound was muffled under the weight of the blankets, but still audible.

Moran smirked. "Sounds pretty pathetic to me, boss. Still under the weather, is he? Taken him long enough to recover from a simple beating." He did not understand why Jim would be remotely interested in Sherlock Holmes.  _Never have, never will_. Just seemed…wrong, somehow.

Moriarty bit savagely into his second piece of toast. "I'd be quiet if I were you, Seb. Wouldn't want daddy to know too much about your knowledge of his injuries, lest I make assumptions that you were the one who inflicted them."

Moran kept quiet after that.

Both of the two men leaned forward when the audio picked up the sound of someone coming very quickly down the stairs, followed by the noise of a door off screen being opened, and then an expletive, followed by the appearance of John Watson charging into the living room.

"Oh, sweet, the pet has missed its master." Moriarty sniggered as he sipped his coffee."Separation anxiety."

"Sherlock, what are you doing in here? We had this conversation last night. Bedrooms are for sleeping, and keeping warm. Why did you move out here? "

The bundle of blankets just coughed again.

John sighed. "You left the inhaler by your bed. Have you been coughing half the night?"

A tousled head appeared, and said to the wall, "no, the whole night."

"And you didn't think to use the medicine?"

"Didn't work in there, which is why I moved out here." Sherlock sat up. "Your bedroom is directly over mine, and if I had stayed in there, you'd have heard me. No reason for both of us to lose sleep."

John just looked at him. "Fine time to start thinking about me, Sherlock. Not that I didn't appreciate a good night's sleep, but you needed it more than I did."

Sherlock frowned. "Last time I had pneumonia, the walk-in clinic gave me a prescription cough medicine that was brilliant. Stopped the cough and put me to sleep."

"Yeah, well, it most likely had codeine which you can't have right now, for obvious reasons, which reminds me, I have to go out at some point and get that medic-alert bracelet."

Sherlock didn't reply, just blinked and then coughed. This one was …wet. So were the next three. Full of phlegm and rather nasty sounding.

John disappeared from the camera's view for about twenty seconds, then re-appeared with a digital thermometer. He handed it to Sherlock, who scowled at it.

"Now. In your mouth. Before tea. I need to know whether to add paracetemol to the list. You're already almost four hours behind schedule now on your medicines. I will set my alarm in future."

Jim sniggered. "He's playing army doctor, and Sherlock is just rolling over to it. Who would have thought it?" There was something rather…adorable about the rumpled figure with blankets puddled around his waist. Every time Jim had seen Sherlock, the young man had been clothed in his armour of good suit and sarcastic superiority. Seeing him now…looking rather worse for wear, a bit vulnerable and pouty…well, it set the consulting criminal's mind off on an unexpected tangent.

When he first went after Mycroft, it had been simply an exercise of scalp hunting- add another one to his list of UK dark angels. Given his position, the elder Holmes would be…just perfect in the role, and allow Jim to expand his operations confident in the knowledge that he would be protected. But, the man had proved irritatingly difficult to suborn. Not enough weaknesses, no vices. Liked to over-complicate things at times, probably compensating for being bored by his job- no really  _interesting_ challenges in politics and protecting the British Government's position in a world that no longer recognised its role;  _the days of imperial rule are over, Your Majesty; the land of hope and glory is a whole lot smaller than it used to be_.

Jim couldn't wait for the moment when he'd be eye-to-eye with that three piece suit and just rub it in.  _I'm bigger than you are, Holmes!_  He knew that his own network was far wider ranging and more powerful than any one of the security services in the 32 countries in which he operated. Still, London merited his personal attention, as the financial hub of so much of the world's criminal activity. To crack London wide open, he needed someone like Holmes.

So, he'd set up the series of puzzles to see if he could suborn the younger Holmes, and then use that as a lever against the elder. Jim had a giggle about Carl Powers- _fancy that, both of us learning our calling at such an early age, about the same crime, what a good use to put such a dull boy._  There was something of Kismet in that, and the more he dug into their back history, the more he realised that Sherlock could prove the undoing of the Iceman.

Midway through the game, however, Jim realised that he was having way too much  _fun_  playing with Sherlock to stop anytime soon. He then decided to recruit the consulting detective, whom he suspected had no morals to speak of, and who lived for the fascination of solving puzzles.

Jim heard Moran sniff behind him. Briefly annoyed at the distraction, he put his coffee down. "Out with it, Sebbie. What's exercising that slab of meat between your ears?" He looked back at the blond man, who sat as if on military parade, his ram-rod straight posture signalling his disapproval of the image on the TV screen.

Moran scowled. "Just look at him! What a pathetic creature. He looks as useless as, don't know, some loony who belongs in a psych ward. I just don't see what possible appeal that…reject could have to someone as clever as you."

There was a beep, so Jim looked back at the screen and watched Watson pull the digital thermometer from Sherlock's mouth. The doctor frowned at what he saw, and marched off camera. Sherlock just watched him go, with a sad look. Then he turned his head toward the window and stared out across Baker Street at the roofline across the road.

"Seb,  _darling_ , that man has a brain that comes close to being the most interesting I have ever come across. He isn't  _predictable_. Do you know how hard it is to find someone like that? I am surrounded by _eedjits_ \- people so dull that I have to pinch myself to stay awake. Too many people like you, who are tools to be used, guns to be aimed, plots to be hatched. Everyone has their little ambitions just gasping to be satisfied. All my life, I have been surrounded by people who are just too easy to manipulate. I can have anything in the world I want, if I could be bothered to care enough to bend someone to my will so I can get it. The Holmes brothers are interesting simply because they aren't  _easy_."

Moran looked annoyed. "For fuck's sake, just let me shoot one or both of them and let's move on."

Jim sighed. "…just one more fecking soldier; that's all you are. You don't understand that in a world where I can have anything, bend and break anyone, finding something, some one – in this case  _TWO_  someones- who are really challenging, well- that's better than sex, Seb. Better than money, power, anything you care to name. It reminds me that I am alive, and gives me just a teensy little bit of respite, from spending my time with people AS BORING AS YOU ARE!" He glared at the former Special Ops man, knowing that he wouldn't raise his eyes from the floor. He didn't dare. No one did. That was the problem in a nutshell.

Whatever else he was, Sherlock was not  _boring_. He was fascinating. Even someone like Mycroft Holmes was ultimately predictable, if you could somehow get Queen and Country onto the negotiating table. But Sherlock was not even remotely interested, and that made him just extraordinary. The puzzles had been too easy. Jim realised that having the innocents wrapped in Semtex got other people excited, but Sherlock would have done the work without such incentive. That made him just …delicious.

The more Moriarty discovered, the more improbable the man's genius seemed. A cocaine addict, with serious dislike of human interaction, yet nevertheless gifted at figuring out motive and method in some of Jim's most successful clients' work. There was so much about Sherlock that made no sense. The package that the brain came in was highly attractive, yet totally oblivious to its impact on people, and could in one moment switch from being endearingly vulnerable sitting there on his sofa like some overgrown child into a man who could in five minutes crack open a crime scene that baffled everyone but the criminal who created it- whilst at the same time being verbally vicious, tearing everyone around him apart at the seams- just because they didn't see the same things he did.  _Changeable_  didn't even begin to describe it.

The pool incident had been intriguing; it had not gone as expected, and not just because of the interruption. Having abused the pet, Jim expected Sherlock to be more biddable. Yet, the army doctor had let Sherlock run the encounter. No begging, no admission that Jim had the upper hand, despite the possibility that the bomb was real, and totally ignoring the snipers' red tracers on his forehead. This delectable creature just didn't….care. Even to the point of threatening mutually assured destruction. If he needed a confirmation that Sherlock was working to a different set of rules, the pool side discussion had proved it.

And afterwards he found it interesting that Mycroft Holmes had sussed that there was a mutual fascination going on, and tried to stop it.  _Fat chance, Iceman. He's mine, all mine; keep your frosty fingers off him._  The Irishman knew that there was a game of tug of war going on between him and Mycroft Holmes over Sherlock. Suborning was no longer enough, he wanted to  _own_  Sherlock. The fact that he'd enticed Sherlock to meet privately with him, eat lunch with him, drink his wine, wash with his soap- that memory was  _so sweet_ , that it now took pride of place in the drawer marked  _Sherlock Holmes_  in his mind vault.

Jim knew his motivation with Mycroft was driven by cool calculation, pride and the brutality of power play. Like clockwork, he knew just how to slowly take apart the image of infallibility. The first steps had already been taken today, and he had no doubts about his eventual success. The drawer in his mind vault labelled  _Mycroft Holmes_  was ready and waiting. He'd made his first deposit in there of the audio recording of his younger brother seriously considering the offer of joining Jim. That was salt in the man's wounds, and Jim knew that salt melted a snowman just as easily as heat did.

But, the pleasure of capturing Mycroft was becoming secondary. Jim was only just coming to terms with his motivations about Sherlock, which he realised were much more personal.  _Are you me? Are you really someone who gets it, deep down at a gut level, where I have never ever connected with anyone before? Could it be possible?_ Looking at the screen in front of him, he was riveted in a way that Sebastian Moran would never, ever understand.

Watson reappeared on screen carrying a glass of water and a handful of pills. He held his out, and glared at Sherlock, who did not react.

"Sherlock."

No reply, no eye contact. Sherlock was just staring out of the window onto Baker Street, as if mesmerised. The doctor sighed, put down the water glass and the fistful of pills he'd carried down beside the glass. "Up to you, mate." Affecting an air of nonchalance, Watson went into the kitchen, and Jim heard the sound of domestic life- a kettle being switched on, a cupboard being opened, then the fridge, the clatter of teaspoons into mugs, then the sound of a toaster being pushed down. More clatter. Sherlock did not budge, or avert his gaze down to the things left on the coffee table.


	6. hors de Combat

When John returned to the living room, Sherlock had not moved at all. He was still looking out of the window. There was something …worrying in that. The doctor went over to him and stood between the window and the figure on the sofa. There was no change. Sherlock's line of sight remained fixed. And now that he was closer, John could see that his eyes weren't really focussed on anything.

"Sherlock?" He waved his hand in front of his friend's eyes, watching as the pupils dilated normally in the shadow cast by his hand and then constrict when the shadow passed. But there was no conscious acknowledgement. He put a hand on the man's shoulder, despite the fact that he knew Sherlock did not like to be touched. No reaction. That  _really_  worried John, who immediately grabbed his wrist and took a pulse. Normal, maybe a little fast? He let go and watched the hand drop back into Sherlock's lap, and lay where it had fallen. He spoke again. "Sherlock?"

He tried a pain stimulus. Took a pinch of flesh on the side of the brunet's neck and applied pressure. It would leave a bruise, but he was so worried now that he didn't care. Nothing at first, then eventually, Sherlock blinked. That was it.

 _Shit._ John dug out the phone in his pocket and hit Mycroft's number on speed dial. It was the PA that answered. "Doctor Watson, how can I help?"

"I need to speak to Mycroft; there's something wrong with Sherlock."

"He's in a meeting with the Prime Minster at the moment, and then going onto Vauxhall. Does Sherlock need to return to the clinic? If so, you have medical power of attorney, I believe, so take whatever action you think is reasonable."

John looked down at the phone in amazement. "Is there  _anything_  that you don't know about me?"

A little snort of suppressed laughter, then, "Mr Holmes tells me what I need to know to do this sort of thing on his behalf. Do you want me to send a car to take him to the clinic? I will tell him to call you when he gets out of the meeting."

John thought about it. "Actually, don't. He doesn't need to go back, so no to the car. You're right. I can figure this one out. If I can't, I'll call back."

"Good luck, Doctor Watson." And John knew that she meant it, whatever name she was going by these days.

He turned back to the brief case with all Sherlock's medical files in it, and fished around until he found the business card he was looking for. After punching in the numbers, John just hoped she would take the call.

It was answered on the third ring. "Dr Cohen."

He heaved a sigh of relief. "Hi, Esther. It's John Watson. And, yes, I do need some advice- maybe even a house call. "

"You're not at the clinic anymore?"

"No- back in London at 221b Baker Street. Is there any chance of you getting here?"

She could hear his worry in the tone of voice. "Remind me to ask you how on earth Sherlock managed to convince Mycroft to release him. In the meantime, what's the problem?"

"He's been sitting in exactly the same position with a fixed stare, normal pulse and pupil dilation, but extreme delay to pain stimuli, and all that got was a blink."

"Are you thinking a subclinical seizure?"

"Yeah. I've read the files."

"How long has it been since you first noticed?"

John looked at his watch. "About a half an hour."

"Oh, that's a long one for him. I'm on my way. I'm just in Camden Town, should be there in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, try to get him lying flat and in a safe position if it should go either tonic or clonic."

"Is that likely?" He could hear her going down stairs and out a door, then street noises.

"Don't know, John- wish I did. We've been messing up his neurochemistry with drugs so much anything is possible."

It took her twelve minutes, during which time, John got Sherlock stretched out on his side in the recovery position on the sofa, with the coffee table moved away a safe distance. The pills he had left by the now cold cup of tea skittered about when he moved the piece of furniture, but he didn't stop to pick them up.

Mrs Hudson answered the doorbell, and John heard voices, then Dr Cohen came up the seventeen steps quickly. She came in and gave a quick smile to John in greeting, but then turned her attention to Sherlock.

As she looked Sherlock over, she asked John for a full list of the medications that Sherlock was on. He recited them- but explained that he'd overslept and missed the 8am dose, so it meant that there wasn't much kicking around in his system at the moment. He hadn't managed to get the paracetemol in him this morning despite a low grade fever.

"Diazepam?"

"No- no signs of agitation. He was bolshy last night; wanted the naltrexone pellet out. But, then he's never liked medicines, so nothing really out of the ordinary. Wanted to stop the antibiotics, too, saying he'd had enough of them. He coughed most of the night and didn't get any sleep, said the inhaler wasn't working at all, so he'd stopped."

"That's interesting. Had it worked before?"

"Yeah, at the clinic. But not now apparently."

There was a sort of choked noise from the sofa, and both doctors turned together. Esther was closest and had managed to get a hand on Sherlock as he went completely rigid and his eyes rolled upwards

"Time it!" she managed to blurt out, and then John started counting out loud. Before he reached thirteen, the initial tonic phase stopped and the clonic began, with rhythmic contractions and then relaxation of Sherlock's muscles.

As a doctor, John knew that it looked worse than it was. But, this was Sherlock, and the sight of him seizing was just…horrible.

It seemed to take an eternity. But then the contractions stopped. Dr Cohen sat on the side of the sofa, and put a firm hand on his shoulder. "Sherlock. Wake up now. It's over, but I need you to help us out now."

There was no response. Esther asked quietly. "How long?"

John looked down at his watch. "Four minutes, twenty seconds."

She sighed. "A bad one, then. He hasn't done this- well, not to my knowledge anyway- since he was in his teens. Subclinicals – yes. But those are short; most people don't even know he's having one. He just goes vacant for a while."

Sherlock's breathing evened out and he seemed to be taking deeper breaths. A few minutes passed. Then a cough, followed by several more. John watched as Sherlock's eyelashes fluttered, then opened onto those grey green eyes. He tried to sit up, and Esther helped him upright. He closed his eyes and coughed a few more times, then seemed to get it under control.

When he opened his eyes and looked around, he saw John and then Esther's concerned faces, but wouldn't keep his eyes on them. "Wha… happn'd?" It was more a mumble than his usual clear diction.

"Sherlock. You've had a seizure."

The brunet looked at Esther Cohen as if surprised to see her in Baker Street. She smiled reassuringly at him. "You're probably feeling a bit weird, Sherlock. It's the postictal confusion. Nothing to worry about. We need to get you cleaned up and into bed. Are you feeling nauseous?"

He nodded. And then tried to get his feet onto the floor, but moved as if he wasn't sure where his body ended and the rest of existence started. John moved to the other side of him and put his shoulder under Sherlock's left arm. He and Esther then lifted. Once standing, they helped him move a few halting steps, before Sherlock just stopped, as if digging in. "Wait…"

"What is it? Do you need something?"

Sherlock was looking down at the floor and just shook his head. "I… say...something."

Esther Cohen tried to reassure him. "Speech is going to be difficult for a while, Sherlock; once you've had a sleep it will be easier."

He shook his head, awkwardly grabbing at John's arm. He looked around the room and his eyes fell on his laptop sitting on the table between the two windows. "There… files…last night…." His knees started to give way. John and Esther half carried him to the bathroom.

"We'll have to strip him, John. He lost bladder control during the seizure."

They sat him down on the closed toilet seat and Esther started to remove his wet pyjama bottoms. John disappeared into Sherlock's room and came back with a clean pair. Sherlock was awake and sort of willing to co-operate, but rather out of it, so getting him sorted took a while. John returned to say that he'd made the bed, and the two of them got Sherlock up again and then into the bedroom.

Once under the covers Sherlock was asleep almost instantly. John just gave a wry smile. "Only time I've ever seen him go to sleep so fast."

Esther just shook her head. "He's always had sleep disorders. His EEG is epileptiform at dream stage IV. Comes with the territory, I am afraid. One in four on the spectrum will have non-epileptic seizures at some point. He'll sleep, probably as long as twelve hours now. We'll need to keep an eye on him so that fluids in his lungs don't get worse, or his fever spikes. Bad time to be recovering from pneumonia. I'll sit with him for a while, just to be sure he's asleep for good."

While the kettle boiled, he cleaned up the sofa, thinking there were advantages to leather. John got Esther a cup of tea, and with his own cup, he sat at the table and opened up Sherlock's laptop, calling up his friend's internet browsing history. His eyes opened wide at the list of specialist medical journals. Taking a sip, he opened the first one.


	7. Reviewing the Troops

Mycroft climbed the seventeen steps to the flat, knowing that he would be heard. He'd used a key he had made when Sherlock had first moved in.  _Just in case_  was his excuse for such a liberty with his brother's independence. He didn't abuse it often, but tonight there was ample reason.

He pushed open the door to the living room, and heard a "Hello, Mycroft." John was at the table, using a laptop. A substantial pile of medical files was to his left. "I wondered when you were going to show up."

Mycroft walked in and pulled a familiar grey box from his pocket, set it on the coffee table and switched it on. A small green light came on.

John frowned. "Is that really necessary? Didn't you sort this place out while we were gone?"

Mycroft hung his coat up next to Sherlock's and leaned his umbrella against the wall. "Of course, John- all the latest technology. By definition, however, it can be subverted and infiltrated. I'm not the only one with a vested interest in Sherlock's health. How is he, by the way?" It was mildly said, but the implication was there.  _You didn't ring back, so if you haven't got this under control, I will be very annoyed._

"That's a good question. Wish I had a straight forward answer."

Esther Cohen came down the hall from Sherlock's bedroom. Even before she got into the room, Mycroft said, "Good evening, Doctor Cohen." He watched the grey haired petite woman come in, and the question hung unasked in the air between the two of them.

It was John who broke the ice first. "She's here because I invited her, Mycroft. No, we didn't discuss a formal consultation or retainer fees. I know you fired her the day before yesterday, but she came because  _I_  asked her to- and I want her opinion on something now. But, before I ask it, I need to know, given you've been in meetings all day, whether you're aware that Sherlock had a Grand Mal seizure today."

There was no reaction, no expression on his face as Mycroft walked over to Sherlock's chair and sat down in it, rather heavily. He ran a hand over his eyes, and John realised that he was seeing Mycroft tired. No, even more extraordinary, Mycroft  _willing_  to be seen as being tired. That was a first.

"No, I didn't know. My PA told me that you had things under control."

"And we do, Mycroft." Esther sat down in John's chair. "John called me to say that Sherlock was having a subclinical, an  _absence_  seizure, and I came over. We were both here when the full-blooded variety occurred, and we kept him safe. He's sleeping off the effects now."

"Why? Why  _now_?" Sadness and frustration leaked into Mycroft's question. There was an implied comment, too, that John heard, even though Mycroft didn't say it. _This is the worst possible time for this to happen._

"There's never a good time for this, Mycroft. But, I think Sherlock knew that something was going to occur. Afterwards, he wasn't making much sense but he pointed me towards his laptop. He spent most of last night up researching. I've unpicked his work, and it makes pretty amazing reading."

Esther Cohen was watching Mycroft. Two days ago, she'd been sent packing by the man, who thought nothing of dismissing her when she had refused to sign sectioning papers that would keep Sherlock locked up for at least 28 days. That had been the hard, steel-edged older brother, one used to giving orders and having them obeyed. The man sitting in the chrome and leather chair across from her now was not that person. Not tonight. Something had happened, and it wasn't just to Sherlock. There was empathy in her eyes as she saw him digest John's words.

John saw it, too. "What's happened, Mycroft? What's changed?"

It was said quietly: "Moriarty."

John visibly flinched. "Back again, then?"

"In spades, John. Three little 'reminders' delivered to me today, with his fingerprints all over them. The damage is superficial at first glance. But ideas have been planted, which will grow in fertile soil. I am being targeted, and I fear that Sherlock will be caught in the crossfire."

Esther looked confused. "Who's Moriarty?"

Mycroft just shook his head. "Don't ask. It's not relevant to you and what you need to do, doctor." He leaned forward, his elbows on his immaculately clad knees, and said to her, "fix my brother, Doctor Cohen, and hurry. We're going to need every ounce of that brain of his to get through what's coming. And there isn't much time."

The psychiatrist tilted her head in surprise. "And you think such a thing is possible- a 'cure'? What out of that nine inch stack of his medical files over there gives you any grounds for such a hope?"

John intervened. "Actually, Sherlock may have some new answers himself."

That made both Mycroft and Esther look at him in puzzlement.

"I've just spent the last two hours reading what Sherlock researched last night. Dr Cohen, would you consider yourself an expert in adult autistic patients?"

"Of course not. No one is. There are specialists who focus on autistic  _child_  patients, but nowhere near enough research has been done on adults with the condition."

"Why is that?" The blond doctor seemed genuinely surprised.

"Well, in part because the concept of the Autism Disorder Spectrum is relatively new in terms of mental health. There are literally thousands of mental institution inpatients and outpatients for that matter who are undiagnosed adults on the spectrum. But, nine times out of ten, they are being treated for other conditions, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia- you name it. While the ADS idea's been around for most of the twentieth century, it wasn't a recognised differential diagnostic until the 1980s, and PDD-NOS was even later in the nineties. And most research since has focused on kids."

"What about neurochemical research?"

She just snorted. "That's so new that it's not made much impact yet on treatments for children, let alone adults. The pharmacology mostly involves testing drugs created for other purposes to see what affect they have on autistic symptoms- again, almost all the clinical research is with children."

"Well, last night Sherlock read just about everything he could get his hands on- and there are some interesting conclusions. First, did you know that naltrexone has been used successfully to control anxiety and aggression in autistic children?"

"Oh! I didn't know that." Dr Cohen looked impressed.

Mycroft's eyebrows also rose. "Then surely it is a good thing that he's had the pellet inserted?"

"Not necessarily- he told me yesterday; in fact, he's been saying it all along, that the naltrexone makes him feel 'weird'. I just thought it was him, you know, being difficult about taking medicine."

Esther shook her head. "Actually his reaction makes sense. Sherlock's frustration symptoms have only very rarely ever pushed him into aggression, even as a child. He's used more of an avoidance strategy. He's probably adapted to dealing with the neurochemical pressures, and when they get repressed, it makes him feel 'off'. Well, to be honest, I doubt it's doing much good in terms of stopping cravings- it wasn't a full-blooded addiction this time, anyway. We could remove the pellet, if he really wanted it out."

"Could it be the reason for the seizure?" Mycroft wasn't a doctor, but over the years, he'd had to understand just what was going on with his brother. "He hasn't had one of those since he was a teenager."

John replied. "Maybe, but maybe not. One article he bookmarked suggests a regression into more overtly autistic symptoms, including seizure, could be due to bacterial issues in his gut. And we've been pumping him full of antibiotics for the pneumonia, which can have side effects in one's digestive bacteria."

"So, what you're saying, John, is that the treatment we've been subjecting him to for the past month has made the autism  _more_  of a problem for him?" Esther could not keep the concern out of her voice.

"That's what his research last night is suggesting. I wouldn't have a clue, myself. This is so far out of my medical comfort zone that I couldn't argue one way or the other."

Cohen smiled ruefully. "Out of  _everyone's_ comfort zone _._ John _._ Mycroft, maybe that's your answer. All these years, doctors have been treating him without realising that he is finally capable of holding his own when it comes to diagnosis and medication. Sherlock is a biochemist, after all, and, knowing him, I'd guess that he's become something of an expert on the condition. Maybe we should just ask him when he wakes up what he thinks will get him back to what passes as normal for him."

Mycroft searched the eyes of the grey haired woman – checking for any sign of duplicity. When he didn't see any, he looked away for a moment, before seeking John's reaction. What he saw there clinched it for him. "If both of you think it is the right thing to do, then I am willing to try it. I don't think we have any choice. We've run out of time for anything else."

He got up slowly and straightened his shoulders, as if settling the burden of responsibility once again. Mycroft collected his coat and umbrella, and said quietly to John, "Tell him I was here- and why. After today's events, I'll have to increase the protection and surveillance. Regrettable, but tell him not to take it personally. And keep that jamming device on when you need to say anything important; no need to let the enemy in on our deliberations." With that, the British Government went back down the seventeen steps to his waiting car.


	8. Behind Enemy Lines

The four inch Louboutin heels made a distinctive sound that Kate had come to understand. Even before her mistress came into sight, she was able to assess the woman's mood. And the noise on the tiled black and white floor of the Belgravia townhouse hall sounded….annoyed.

Kate greeted her at the second floor bedroom door, and saw that Irene's impeccable make-up did nothing to conceal her frown. "What's the matter?" Her gentle query provoked a flash of anger, but Kate realised it wasn't aimed at her.

Irene walked into the bedroom and slipped the first of the shoes off, followed rapidly by the second. For a moment, she looked as if she was about to throw them across the room. Kate rescued them from her hands before it could happen.

Irene reached behind her back, trying to catch the concealed zip at the back. "Help me out of this, will you? I need to get comfortable."

The young woman pushed her red hair behind an ear, and then found the zip on Irene's elegant Armani sheath dress, gently pulling it down. As the sea green watered silk slipped off her shoulders, past her perfect figure, Kate just enjoyed the view and uttered a soft sight of pleasure. She was smitten, and Irene knew it. She hoped that being obvious about her affection would tame the rage a bit.

"Not now, Kate; I need to think."

Trying not to pout, Kate hung up the dress and handed her mistress the ivory silk dressing gown, and watched the woman remove the stockings and suspender belt. Irene then pulled a few strategically placed pins from her hair, allowing the dark waves to descend. Irene gave her head a shake, and then said "I could murder a nice cup of tea right now."

"Of course." Kate was off down the stairs, happy to be able to bring some comfort.

By the time she returned with the cup of Margaret Hope First Flush Darjeeling tea, Irene had removed her jewellery and make-up, and was sitting at her dressing table, eyeing her reflection critically.

Without a word, she accepted the tea and took a sip, closing her eyes to savour the moment.

Kate wanted to do more. "What can I do to help? A massage?"

Irene put the cup down and frowned. "I wished it was that simple, darling. Unfortunately, it isn't. You know I  _hate_  being kept waiting."

The red haired girl smiled indulgently at her mistress. "Well, patience is not a virtue in your line of business, is it? The clients look to you to take charge."

That made Irene reach for the tea cup again. Kate had hit the nail squarely on its head. There was no way to  _take charge_  of this situation. No matter who she had tried over the past month, no one had been able to crack the MOD code. She was now getting anxious that Moriarty would not give her much more time; he kept making snide comments about just "taking it off your hands". That worried her, especially when he said "it was better than taking your hands off; Maybe I will do that instead of making you into shoes; a pair of gloves, perhaps?"

The Irishman's boredom over the past month had been painful to hear. They'd not met up again, just texted and the occasional phone call. While he got more and more frustrated at the absence of the younger Holmes, she was becoming more of a target in his mind. "Love the one I'm with, honey- that's my motto. And I'd  _love_  to get my hands on that code and use it to lure the Iceman out into the noonday sun."

She was dependent on Moriarty's surveillance to know when she could make her move on the younger brother. It needed to be soon. Mycroft Holmes could be suborned, but only by playing on his Windsor connections. That was becoming more tenuous an opportunity every day they delayed. Her Royal Highness was getting more reluctant to make their little play dates.  _Father's been looking at me rather funny recently; we need to be careful._ But, Irene needed to use the Royal Flush to get Mycroft to break cover, so she had to keep HRH as an interested client.

Irene felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. Not a position she was used to, it had to be said. Today's rendezvous had been meticulously arranged, the one bedroom suite at the Goring Hotel across from Buckingham Palace booked as usual. Irene sat there waiting for almost two hours on her own, past the time for their session. Expensive, and not good for the image either; her reputation as a dominatrix suffered every time she was stood up. HRH needed to fear her more than she did her father. Their next session should prove to be an interesting one, as Irene would have to make her feel as humiliated as she had been when she left the hotel after the no-show. Normally, Irene enjoyed sending off the princess scurrying back to daddy, and then luxuriating in the palatial surroundings overnight. If it was good enough for Kate Middleton on the night before her wedding to Prince William, then it was good enough for Irene. Sometimes, she even called her Kate and they made a night of it, with room service, as well.

Not tonight. The eyes of the Hotel Receptionist had followed her out the door, and Irene could almost hear her thinking,  _high class prostitute, if she's only been here for two hours._

A few muffled bars of Mozart's Queen of the Night aria interrupted her thoughts, the crystal soprano hitting the most amazing high notes- her current ring-tone on the Vertu phone. She fished it out of her handbag, getting ready to deliver her verbal chastisement of a twenty four year old princess. "Number unavailable" came up on caller-ID.

"Hello," she answered. Not a question, more a statement of intent.

"Hello, Ireeeneee." She flinched. Moriarty's insistence on giving her name the Irish pronunciation irritated her, and he knew it. It was also delivered by a computer synthesised voice, much deeper than his own and sounding like some villain in a bad gangster film. She'd asked him why the camouflage; he'd replied that with Big Brother's GCHQ connections, he had to avoid using his real voice on any phone call made in the UK. "Besides, my dear, don't you just  _love_  the melodrama?"

She wasn't in the mood. "Not today, thanks," and reached for the button to end the call.

"Just hold your horses, sweetie- we are about to finally get started. Call your horse in from the field, and get ready to mount up, my little whipper-in."

That stopped her. "Explain."

"Little bro is back in town. In fact, I'm watching him now. Care to join me?"

As much as she might like to finally see the man she'd been researching for the past seven weeks, the idea of spending time in Moriarty's company did not appeal. "Why not send me the DVD,  _darling_? Then I can watch on my own time." If the stress on the term of endearment was too sharp, she knew it would convey her distaste at being called  _sweetie_. Nothing in Irene's character was likely to appreciate that epithet.

There was a muffled sound at Moriarty's end. She could hear someone in the background- a male voice. "Hang on a minute, will you? We seem to be experiencing technical difficulties."

"It's your call, Mr Moriarty." She kept the sarcasm down to the minimum needed. No reason to provoke him unnecessarily. A few moments passed, as she heard muffled noises on the other end of the phone.

"Back again! It seems that Big Bro doesn't appreciate our eavesdropping- just showed up with a jamming device. Of course, that means  _HE_ won't be able to spy on Sherlock either- which opens some interesting opportunities that I need to discuss with my foot soldier. What the Holmes movies have revealed up to this point is that little brother isn't very well at the moment. A bit vulnerable, and definitely off his game. Wouldn't want to take too unfair an advantage, so let's give him a week to get his act together. Then you can make your move, my dominatrix. Contact the Palace and turn up the heat on the Iceman's Windsor connections. T minus seven days and counting, before our fun and games can begin!"


	9. First Manoeuvre

John watched Sherlock get up from the table and stretch. He's been at his laptop for the past three hours, but now rolled his head first to the right and then the left, getting the joints to release after being held for such a long time in one position.

"I'm going to fix myself some tea. Want some?"

This was a new Sherlock, who not only did things for himself, but offered to include John as well. The transformation had been startling. It took some getting used to, but in a good way.

The last six days also changed the relationship between the two flatmates. John was no longer the man's doctor; he was back to being friend, colleague, flatmate and general factotum. It was a role he felt more comfortable with, and it clearly suited Sherlock, who, by nature, resisted authority of any kind, no matter how well intentioned.

Esther Cohen had been right; somewhere along the way, both she and Mycroft had not realised that Sherlock was no longer a child, teenager or rebellious young man. His research into his own condition made it sensible to consult him before making medical decisions.

Once he'd woken up after the seizure, she'd called a "case conference". Things were a little tense, but John could see the merits of getting Mycroft to attend as well. Over a cup of tea, with the little grey box blinking its green light alongside the teapot, the four of them had the first civil discussion for almost two months.

Even so, Sherlock wouldn't look at any of them when he started explaining what he wanted to do.

The grey haired psychiatrist was a bit reluctant. "Sherlock, what you've just described is just… counter-intuitive. It goes against so much of what I've been taught and how I've treated you over the past twenty years, I almost don't know where to begin."

Sherlock's proposed regime was simple- take out the naltrexone pellet, stop the antibiotics, treat the cough with a prescription-strength antihistamine with codeine so he could sleep, and change his diet radically- out with all carbohydrates and in with protein. No antidepressants, nothing to take the edge of anxiety or agitation. "I need to think. I can't abide being all…muzzy headed. I want to smoke again, but I know you'll go berserk at the idea, John, so I'll just resort to nicotine patches. That and lots of caffeine. I need the stimulus to be able to focus."

John had taken a deep breath. "Well, apart from the nicotine, I read about most of that in the medical journals you book-marked. I suppose it's worth a try."

Mycroft was looking at his brother with his usual forensic intensity. "Sherlock, just what do you suppose is going to happen, when you aren't keeping yourself fully occupied?"

That earned him a glare from the younger man. "Who said I can't work? That's in your head Mycroft, not mine. Once the cough is gone, I can work. You agreed that at the clinic. I should work. I need to work, or I'll go crazy. You know that. We have this discussion every time. Work is  _therapy_. Get over it and let me do it."

John stepped in before the siblings' skirmish could turn into a nasty fire fight. "This is chicken or egg- is there a half-way house, something we can compromise on?" He looked at Esther for help.

"Well, normally, I'd prescribe a course of diazepam to ease the anxiety and agitation for a couple of weeks, and a tapering in of work."

"No." Sherlock folded his arms across his chest, his body language showing his refusal to even consider the idea.

Mycroft said mildly, "I don't think John appreciates just how difficult you can be when you really get in a bad way. He's only seen the mildest forms of what you like to call your …boredom."

 _Mild?_ John's mind boggled. If what he had seen Sherlock do when he was shouting "bored" at the top of his lungs, tearing strips off of every human being he came into contact with, texting the same word twenty times to him in succession when he was working at the clinic, or when the man had virtually destroyed the flat, shooting at the walls in frustration…if that was  _mild_ , he was going to have to side with Mycroft.

"I won't take an SSRI- they stop the brainwork." The over-emphasis on the final "k" sound was there; like a rattler shaking its tail in warning. "And withdrawal from the diazepam is ghastly- my brain just  _hurts_ ; it's like ECT all over again, and that's not counting the nausea, dizziness and even worse insomnia than usual. No, never again, not as long as I have a say." Sherlock glared at him, and then looked at Esther Cohen. "I have another solution to propose. Did you read the article I bookmarked on oxytocin?"

She looked askance. "Yes, but you know that's only experimental. The project is just in trials; there's no way you'd fit their test sample protocol."

"Don't have to- I know Biz Chakrabhati; shared a lab bench with him at Cambridge. With some persuasion," here he looked squarely at Mycroft, "I think he would provide a supply. And if he needs convincing, just tell him it's been done in France on 13 adults on the Spectrum."

John looked blank. "Anyone want to fill me in? I didn't see anything about a new drug being tested amongst the files you looked at last night."

"I sent the link to her by email. It's been on my laptop for two months, so it wouldn't show up in the browser history. Project 14 at the University Department of Developmental Psychology. Not a drug  _per se_ ; an inhalation treatment of a peptide hormone. Oxytocin is being tested for, amongst other things, reduction in anxiety.* Dr Cohen knows that I have had a blood plasma deficiency of this for years. Because it's delivered nasally, side effects are limited. It's worth a try, because it specifically does  _not_  impact on attention to detail."

Here he looked at Mycroft again. "…which you know  _we_  can't afford at the moment, given who's out there waiting."

The older Holmes looked to Dr Cohen for her view. She shrugged her shoulders. "If there's a way to get it, then it's worth a try. At least, he will take it, which you and I know he won't with diazepam."

And that had been that. Nine hours later, there was a knock at the door and a delivery of a set of nasal spray bottles, with the instructions to take one dose each morning and one at night. A note in the bag for Sherlock just said, "Good luck, lab rat. With many thanks for that blood sample; it changed my life!" and was signed _Biz_.

"What does he mean, Sherlock?"

The brunet was refrigerating the nasal sprays, so his reply drifted in from the kitchen.

"Biz sat next to me in the molecular biochemistry lab. He was being pressed by his supervisor for a topic to do his final year major project. I gave him a blood sample, and told him about PDD-NOS and the Spectrum. The rest is history."

Next time John looked in the fridge, he found the neatly labelled box of sprays nestled alongside a soya milk carton. Sherlock's new diet had proved challenging, as John discovered when shopping. Having to read every label to ensure it was gluten free and yeast free, slowed him down and made the expedition to fill the fridge time-consuming. In the end, Sherlock just texted his requirements to Angelo and lunch and dinner was delivered. Breakfast was black coffee, yogurt, a boiled egg and fresh fruit. "It's the easiest way to do it, John."

After three nights of 12 hours of codeine and antihistamine induced sleep, Sherlock's cough was miraculously gone. John's stethoscope exam revealed a pair of clear lungs. The ribs were healed, too. But, what was the most astonishing change was Sherlock's mood. He was not pacing the flat, bouncing off the walls. He was patiently going through John's blog forum, identifying potential cases. In the month they'd been off air, literally dozens of potential clients had posted their requests.

"Time to get them around, John. I want to talk to them to see if there is any scope. On the surface, it doesn't look too promising, but I'll never know for sure until I talk to them. I've drawn up a list, and invited them around this afternoon, in fifteen minute intervals."

John thought about it. Physically and mentally, Sherlock was actually functioning better now than he had since before the pool incident. There was no reason to say no. So, he didn't.

The client sessions bordered on the bizarre, as a parade of people marched in and out of Baker Street. Normally, Sherlock didn't like meeting new faces, and often delegated this to John. The idea of the consulting detective enduring a non-stop conveyor belt of such people for hours on end just made John realise the changes in Sherlock's behaviour were nothing short of amazing.

The prospective clients Sherlock called in ranged from one man worrying about his wife spending too long at the office to another chap carrying a funeral urn claiming it contained the ashes of someone other than his aunt. Whatever benefits to social interaction the oxytocin might be having, Sherlock still didn't mind telling people "no". The wife who had a long tedious explanation ended up confessing that she was worried her husband was having an affair. She was simply told "yes" and shown the door. The two children who thought it odd that they hadn't been allowed to see their dead grandfather were told in no uncertain terms about cremation. John was somewhat dismayed when Sherlock dismissed as 'boring' the businessmen who offered "any sum of money you care to name" to recover some files.

"My bank balance could have benefited from that one, Sherlock."

"Tedious." While that might have been the only comment he would have got out of Sherlock before, later that evening Sherlock did re-open the conversation.  _Another first._

"If you're anxious about money, John, I can sort something out with Mycroft. There's no reason why you being stuck in the clinic with me for a month should have any adverse effect on your financial health. I'll get him to compensate you for the lost pay. It's only fair." John tried not to choke on his tea as he looked to see whether Sherlock was taking the piss. No, the green grey eyes that looked at him were sincere; the empathy wasn't being faked. John felt shell-shocked.

The blog forum didn't produce many cases, but he was sometimes surprised at the criteria being applied when Sherlock decided. Two spotty youths who ran a comic book website nearly triggered the usual dismissal, until they said that events depicted in the comics were coming true. " _Interesting…"_   That case didn't need Sherlock to leave the flat, but still kept him entertained for an afternoon and evening. John had fun posting that one on his blog. In fact, in the space of three days, six posts on six crimes solved showed that Sherlock was really enjoying himself, and he'd only had to leave the flat twice.

John decided that things were going so well, that he could afford a little bit of time off. A reunion of the Northumberland Fusiliers medical corps had been in his diary for weeks- a weekend trip to see the English rugby team take on Ireland in Dublin. He filled the fridge, told Mrs Hudson, gave instructions to Sherlock and made sure that the grey box was  _not_ on, so Mycroft could keep an eye on his brother.

"Are you sure you'll be alright, Sherlock?"

The brunet stood up from his microscope and gave John a puzzled look. "Of course. I functioned on my own before I knew you. There is no reason to feel constrained. Those friends of yours want you there; you want to be there. Why shouldn't you go?" John breathed a sigh of relief.

Mrs Hudson virtually shoved him out of the door into the waiting taxi. "Go on, John, you deserve a break after all you've put up with over the past six weeks. I'll keep an eye on him."

oOo

When he got back, Mrs Hudson greeted him on the doorstep and gave him a hug. "Relax, John. He's been fine. That blog of yours has attracted a lot of potential clients, who've kept him busy." She picked up the post on the hall table, "so much so that I think you're getting fan mail!" Her hands were full of cards and letters.

Sherlock didn't even look up from the microscope when John walked in, with Mrs Hudson trailing behind him with the post. "Mrs Turner says all her coffee morning friends read your blog. Sherlock's becoming a celebrity." The consulting detective glanced over at her, and scowled theatrically, but when she left the mail and went back down the stairs, the frown turned into a smirk. "Want a cup of tea? I'm making one for myself and could do you one."

The next morning, Lestrade reappeared on the horizon by texting an unusual case- a blonde woman with hundreds of tiny wounds. This one rated a reaction of "interesting- let's go, John." As the DI watched Sherlock study the corpse at St Bart's morgue, he asked John if things were "back to normal" yet.

"Yeah, sort of."

Sherlock's frustration about not being able to solve the case that John came to call "the speckled blonde" did not manifest itself in the usual black mood, filthy temper and three day sulk that traditionally marked an unsolved murder. That was when John realised that the oxytocin might well be a life-changing event.

On that basis, the DI did not hesitate to call in Sherlock for another strange case, where a man's body had been found in the boot of a car, but with all of the collateral evidence pointing to the fact that he should have been on a plane to Dusseldorf at the time, right down to the ticket stub, a cocktail napkin in his pocket, and a forged German entry stamp on his passport. Sherlock had been perplexed by that one, and unable to solve it, but didn't go off into his usual ballistic rant. Lestrade was impressed.

"Is he actually  _taking_  the antidepressants, John? I mean, I don't think I've ever seen him so calm about not figuring something out."

"Yeah, well, no to the happy pills; you know he hates them. I just think he's glad to be working again, Greg. It's been a while."

The DI agreed. "Nice to see you two back at it again. My clear-up rate just might start to recover from the doldrums."

Lestrade gave the tall brunet bent over the body in the boot of the car an affectionate smile. "You're really good for him, John. If you ask me, this stint in rehab has been better for him than any he's been through since I've known him. Usually, he comes out determined to be even more insufferable to everyone and everything around him, takes weeks for him to settle down to his usual unbearably obnoxious self."

They shared a chuckle at that. The older man continued, "At this rate, I might risk letting him onto a crime scene where Anderson is on forensics."

John raised his hands in mock horror. "Whoa! Don't tempt fate. He's improved, Greg- not cured. And Anderson just might be the test to destruction of his mood, so I'd hold off a while longer if I were you."

The mood was still holding a day and a night later when they solved a murder at the Shaftsbury Theatre. Despite Anderson being at the crime scene, Sherlock was able to keep a civil tongue, and teased John about what name he would give this case on his blog. The play's leading lady turned out to be dead for real, and the blood on the stage hers rather than scarlet syrup. The wound had been inflicted by substituting a real knife for the fake, which thrust into the woman's navel had actually killed her. Sherlock took only fifteen minutes to link the murder to the stage hand's obsessive unrequited love being spurned. As they started to leave, Lestrade warned them that a lot of photographers were outside; it had been press night for the new show. Irritated, Sherlock did declare rather peevishly to John that having a public image was not helpful to the work; again that final K was over-enunciated. But the detective then made matters worse by grabbing a stage prop to disguise his appearance -an outrageously old fashioned deerstalker hat. The newspaper sub-editors had lots of fun with headlines the next day. Even the oxytocin couldn't erase his annoyance about that hat. John realised that Sherlock's vanity was probably impervious to pharmaceutical manipulation.

oOo

Across town in Westminster, Irene caressed the newspaper photo, her blood red fingernail polish contrasting nicely with the black leather riding crop _. Not long now, little brother. I have been so patient, waiting for you to take centre stage so we can begin._  She picked up her phone and dialled the number she knew would connect her eventually with Moriarty. "Hello, I think it's time, don't you?" Whatever the consulting criminal said on the other end, it made her smile before she disconnected. She picked up the crop and headed back into the bedroom of the Goring Hotel Suite, slapping it against her thigh. "Now Your Highness, where were we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: the * is to note that this particular drug test is REAL. Cambridge University's Autism Research Centre is the world leader, headed up by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, but to make the story work, I had the pilot project based there instead of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The pilot has now moved on to a full scale test programme, funded by the NIH, and involving over 500 people across the USA.


	10. Diversionary Tactics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for all of those who like me were perplexed by SiB when Irene knew about the hiker's death- she asks Sherlock and John about it within minutes of their first meeting. How? It wasn't on the news… and, as all the fandom does, I owe a debt to Ariane Devere's transcript on Live Journal, for those bits of dialogue below that were actually broadcast. Think of this as filling in the scene a bit more...

 

 

"Boys! You've got another one!"

By the time John managed to get out of bed, into his dressing gown and down the stairs, Mrs Hudson was bending down over the figure of a rather overweight middle aged man, spread out on the floor of the flat. The doctor took over. He reached for a wrist, and was reassured to find a normal pulse. A quick physical exam showed no wounds, no damage. He turned the man over, put a cushion under his head and stood up.

"I think he just fainted, Mrs Hudson. He should come around soon enough. Do us a favour and babysit while I go upstairs and get dressed. I'll try and rouse Sherlock on the way."

The "new" Sherlock was sleeping better. In fact, it was like he was making up for lost time, so fourteen hour stints were not that unusual. John opened the bedroom door and surveyed the sleeping brunet. He found what appeared to be a foot under the sheets and shook it.

"Wake up Sherlock, I guarantee this isn't boring. We've got an unconscious client in the living room."

One grey green eye popped open. "How can you guarantee that he won't be boring when he wakes up?"

"I'll leave that to you. I'm going upstairs to get some clothes on; I suggest you do the same."

As an army doctor, John was used to going from sleep to fully functional in record time. Somehow an excuse about taking ages to get washed and dressed didn't cut it when someone was lying bleeding on an OR table. Sherlock, on the other hand, could be maddeningly slow. So, when he got back down the stairs ten minutes later, John wasn't surprised to find that the consulting detective had not moved from the bed.

"Come on, Sherlock." He could hear Mrs Hudson talking to someone in the living room. "Sounds like he's awake, so it's your turn to deduce whether he's worth listening to, or not."

Without waiting, John went down the hall and into the kitchen to put the kettle on, before going out and introducing himself to the shaken man sitting on one of the dining table chairs.

oOo

"Welcome,  _ma Cherie_ ; take a seat. The late breakfast show is just about to start." Moriarty patted the space beside him on the white leather sofa. Irene sat down, smoothing the creases out of the navy blue slubbed silk skirt, and watched the large flat screen on the wall.

"It's been quite a giggle so far. That fat bloke came running up the stairs and then collapsed in a heap. The old lady is the woman who lives downstairs- she rents them the flat. The blond guy is Sherlock's pet army doctor, and we are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of the star of the show."

The pair watched as John Watson spoke to the man settled into a dining chair and offered him a cup of tea. The old woman said something about 'leaving him in your capable hands' and started to leave. But as she got to the door, she turned briefly.

"Oh, and tell Sherlock I've thrown away those awful thumbs. Really, he has just got to stop misusing the fridge that way; it is too disgusting for words."

Moran arrived behind the pair on the white sofa. Wordlessly, he handed Moriarty a black coffee, and asked Irene how she took hers.

"With milk, please."

The ex-Army man poured a cup. Before he could ask the obvious question, Jim answered for her. "No sugar; she's  _sweet_  enough, Seb."

They watched the screen for a minute or so, listening to Watson trying to calm the obese man down, waiting for Sherlock.

Jim erupted as another figure came onto the screen. "Oh, and he does NOT disappoint! Just look at that outfit! 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheet in a stylish toga. Who ever said sleepwear had to be  _boring?_!" Moran sniggered.

Irene looked at the tall brunet, who was obviously naked under the sheet. Not anything like his older brother in body shape, Sherlock was lean, trim and the broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist that could not be disguised by the toga, showing off to good effect the firm musculature of his legs. "Hmmm." It was an appreciative comment.

"Down girl." Morarity tore his eyes off the screen to look at her. "He's not your type. And I heard you play for the other side when it isn't strictly professional."

She risked a glare. "Whatever my personal preferences, Mr Moriarty, I can always admire the landscape." She watched his eyes wander back to the screen and devour the sight. "As I see you do, too." She knew that Moriarty had few weaknesses, but his fascination for the younger Holmes might just qualify as one.

Now in the Baker Street living room, Sherlock didn't bother to introduce himself. In a stern baritone, he just ordered the sweating man, "Tell us, from the start. Don't be boring."

There followed the most peculiar tale of a car braking down on a country lane, a hiker in a field beside a stream, a backfire and a death.

The client was still panicked. "I've seen all those stories in the papers recently, about how clever you are at solving impossible things. I need you to solve this. I didn't kill him, honest! But the police are going to think it was me. I just didn't know what else to do."

Sherlock sighed. "It might have been more sensible to stay put rather than fleeing the scene of what you believed to be a crime; that's usually more convincing than any protestations of innocence. Call Lestrade, John, and report the incident. It's not his jurisdiction but he will be able to identify who needs to be involved. You," he gestured to the client, "need to stay here until the police can question you. John, once Lestrade has set things in motion, go to the scene and give me a better idea of what actually happened than this…unreliable eyewitness has been able to do."

John frowned. "And what are you going to do?"

"I'm going back to sleep for the two hours or so it will take to get to the next part where a brain is actually needed."

And with that he strode out of the room and back down the hall to his bedroom.

The client and John exchanged glances.

"Ah, make yourself at home, Mr. ah…?"

"Philips, Robert Phillips. Is he always like that? So…eccentric?"

"Yeah, in my experience."

oOo

Irene turned to Jim. "Is he? Always so eccentric?"

"Deliciously so, my dear. And, he's not to be blamed for being a bit hard on the fatty. I mean, clearly he hasn't had his usual morning dose of whatever new happy medicine they've put him on. "

She looked a little nonplussed. "Is he  _still_  unwell?"

Jim smiled indulgently. "He's a medical fascination, Ireenee. Shouldn't be as smart as he is, but he is. Shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised, I mean just look at that dress sense! But he has convinced his big brother to take the shackles off. He's on some new drug that hasn't been released yet, but according to the pet, it makes him more housetrained. As a result, our boy's been allowed to start playing around with cases again, getting that magnificent brain of his back into shape. It's been fun to watch him over the past week. "

"Any sign of  _our_  case hitting the in-tray anytime soon? I'm getting impatient."

Here Jim turned to look at her, his interest no longer held by anything appearing on the screen. "Just as I am getting impatient for that code,  _my dear_. I could just ask Seb to take it off you now. Presumably it's on that phone you are never without."

She smiled, an expression that conveyed nothing of happiness or pleasure. "Oh, you know I am too clever for that, Mr Moriarty." She tapped the side of her head. "It's up here. Just so you know. Threats against me need to be taken seriously if you want that code. When Mycroft Holmes delivers what I want, you will get both him as a dark angel and the code. That's the price we agreed, Mr Moriarty, and I always keep my side of the bargain. I hope there is mutual understanding here." She put her cup down and rose from the sofa.

"Tell me when the Palace has decided to set things in motion. I made my pitch as promised, but surveillance is your part of the operation." With that, she got up from the sofa and walked out of the room, her stiletto heels tapping a rhythm of impatience.


	11. Preparing for Battle

"What are you doing?"

John was sitting in his chair in the living room of Baker Street, but through the kitchen and down the hall, he could hear Sherlock making a ruckus. Sherlock backed up so he could see himself in his bedroom mirror, wearing a yellow high visibility jacket.

"Going into battle, John. I need the right armour." He disappeared from view again.

Sherlock's phone had been left on the dining room table, and it began to vibrate.

"Your phone, Sherlock."

"Answer it, John; I'm busy."

John sighed. Oxytocin or not, he was still expected to do things that Sherlock could not be bothered to do. He thumbed the phone awake and got caller ID up. "It's Mycroft."

"Tell him to piss off; he's probably just going to rant at me about manners in the near vicinity of royalty."

As if John would do such a thing. "Hello, Mycroft. He's busy trying to figure out what to wear."

This must have puzzled Mycroft for a moment, but he managed, "Well, let's hope he doesn't choose a sheet this time."

John smirked at that. "Do you want me to give him a message?"

"No, take this with you into the bedroom and put it on speaker phone, as you both need to hear this."

John raised his eyebrows at that, but complied.

He walked in to see Sherlock rummaging around in the back of the bottom drawer of his chest. "He wants to speak with both of us."

That made Sherlock sit back on his heels and look up, with a frown. John hit the speaker phone button. "Go ahead, Mycroft, I'm all ears, and he's pretending to listen," as Sherlock bent back down and reached into the back of the drawer.

"Sherlock, this is important, and not something I could mention at the Palace. I'm honouring my commitment to keep you both 'in the loop', as we agreed at the clinic. I know that Irene Adler isn't your usual sort of case, but you both need to know that she has been seen in the company of James Moriarty, not once but twice."

Sherlock sat back up. "In what connection?"

"We don't know. We had visual identification but not audio. It doesn't really matter. She may be the link we have been waiting for."

Sherlock stood up and walked closer to the phone in John's hand. "Then it's not just about recovering the photos. You're thinking that if we can catch her red-handed at something illegal, then you might be able to turn her to our side. Or get your inside line to him by holding her phone hostage?"

"I wouldn't put it that way- sounds too much like blackmail." Mycroft sniffed at the thought. "Just think of it as  _incentivising_  her to turn evidence over to the Crown Prosecutors. So mind how you go. We want her to see the advantages of working this to  _our_  agenda." Here Mycroft paused. "Don't be too over-confident, Sherlock. Appearances can be deceiving. If she's consulting Moriarty, or, rather, he is allowing her to be a client, then she must be able to hold her own. There is plenty of blackmail material on that phone that I am sure he would like to get his hands on."

John looked dubious. "So, Mycroft, let me get this straight. You want us to steal her phone, but make her happy to work with us, against the man you called 'the most dangerous criminal mind the world has ever seen'? That seems a pretty tall order."

Sherlock scowled at the phone, as if Mycroft could see hm. "Thank you, brother; that's enough of a lecture for one day. I will call you when we've got the phone. Go away and run the country now, like you know you want to." He reached over and took the phone, ended the call, and switched the phone off.

"Right, shall we go, John?"

The doctor looked at Sherlock. "You're wearing exactly what you had on when we got home. How is that…armour?"

"Camouflage, John; it's better than armour, helps with the element of surprise."

oOo

Irene was in the back of her car and nearly home when the Vertu trilled the high Cs of the Mozart aria. She turned her phone on and read the incoming text.

**1.45pm I'm sending you a treat. Attached photos**

By the time the car dropped her at her front door, she started the downloading process, which took some time.

She was sitting on her bed when the phone chirped that the process was complete, and she began flicking through the photos.

Sherlock Holmes, still in his sheet toga being escorted from Baker Street into a government car. She smirked. She then opened a CCTV screen shot of the same car, with toga clad passenger, turning into the Queens Mews entrance to Buckingham Palace. Obviously not in awe of royalty, but his attitude recalled a memory shared by HRH of Holmes as a child disrupting the Queen's garden party with a prank involving two corgis, a leash and a cat.

Then various shots of Sherlock (now fully clothed) with Doctor Watson in the back of a black taxi.

She was puzzled by one shot,  _why is he juggling an ash tray in the back of a taxi?_  She was beginning to understand Moriarty's fascination with the man. Predictability was not a feature.

The last photo saw them disappearing into the front door of Baker Street again.

"Kate!"

Her assistant came into the room, her royal blue suit hugging every curve as she bent to pick up one of Irene's discarded seamed stockings.

"We're going to have a visitor. I'll need a bit of time to get ready."

"A long time?"

"Ages!" Irene's smile was voracious.

oOo

Someone else whose appetite had been stimulated was now prowling his flat. Moran was seated in a hard backed dining chair that Moriarty had pulled into the centre of the living room.

"Tactical briefing time, Moran. Time to wake up our little CIA sleeper. Get him to drag along a few off-duty American baddies. It has to look authentic to get Big Brother excited. Let him think that the Langley Lads are all in a tizz about his little brother's shenanigans."

The blond sniper was happy to oblige.  _At last! Once this Holmes thing is out of the way, we can get back to normal_. And anything that promised an opportunity to rough up a certain consulting detective was high up on his 'to do' list. He listened to Moriarty's instructions, determined to follow them this time to the letter. The last time he'd let jealousy blind him into taking more initiative, Sherlock had ended up nearly beaten to death. And Moriarty knew it, too- hence this lecture.

"I've got too much invested in little brother to have you mess it up again, Sebastian. Your little flirtation with the green eyed monster put my timetable back a good six weeks. I won't forgive you that again. Next time you try to push that bone between your ears into some initiative, I will teach you just how much more imaginative I can be than you are. In fact, it would set my mood up just fine, watching your Special Ops training come undone at the seams. So, don't risk it."

"Brief the Yank dark angel well- he's to get in, let her work her tricks with the baby brother, and then arrive like a banshee. Has to make it look scary. He's got to make her look like she's at risk, get the Virgin's protective juices going; you know, knight in shining armour stuff."

Moran shifted in the chair, but decided to risk it. "Are you so sure that she's playing on our side, boss?"

"That's where my next instructions will come in handy. Tell the agent to do his best to get the phone. That's just the sort of blackmail I like- her photos in exchange for MY code. She gets to deliver the Snowman, but I also get access to all those dirty little photos- should help in recruiting our fallen angels. That would just be the butter on the barmbrack, that would."

Moran allowed the confusion to show on his face. Moriarty rolled his eyes, "Oh, this is SO boring. I'm going to start calling you 'Moron' instead of 'Moran'. For your Home County sensibilities, let me translate that into 'icing on the cake'. But, it's not likely to happen, because if you think that either Adler or Holmes Junior is dumb enough to let that phone fall into someone's hands just because he has a big gun, then let me tell you're just so far wide of the mark. Still, it won't hurt to put her on notice."

Then the Irishman had walked behind the former soldier and laid his hands on Seb's muscled shoulders. "Let me make it perfectly clear, so even a moron can understand. Scare them, but no bruises. Make sure the Yank understands that, too. Not a single strand of that outrageously unruly hair of his is to be mussed." With that, he ran his hand over Seb's military short hair and sighed. "Not something you'd understand, obviously."

This time, Moran decided he would follow orders. And later when he briefed the man and his two goons, he made sure that the Yank understood it, too.

"I'll be across the street, with line of sight into the living room. That's where she's agreed to lure Holmes; that's where you arrive for the showdown. Screw up and I won't hesitate to take punitive action." The CIA man knew of his skill with a sniper's rifle.

The American's haircut was even shorter than Moran's, and he worried briefly if he was shorter on brains, too. For a CIA agent to be turned by Moriarty, the guy must have some pretty serious character faults. Still, he was a soldier and he followed his orders, hoping that the agent would be just as well-trained.


	12. Exchange of Gunfire

 

So it was from a vantage point across the street that Moran watched the scene play out. Set up at the open window was his rifle, just in case. Loaded. He had Moriarty on the phone, and was giving him a blow-by-blow account of the events, as he could see them unfolding.

"Holmes Minor just showed up, with pet in tow, knocking on the front door." A brief pause. "He's now talking to Adler's assistant on the intercom."

"What's he wearing? Point your phone across the road and zoom in, I've just got to see this!"

Moran obliged, popping an earpiece into its socket, so he could continue talking as he moved the phone away from his ear. He watched the scene close up, using the rifle’s telescopic sight to get a view. The front door of the townhouse opened and first the taller brunet, and then the blond were allowed in. "Wonder what sob story he used?" mused Moran.

"Doesn't matter, Seb. Just get the camera lined up so I can see what's going on."

On the phone screen, a minute or so later, the image appeared of Sherlock being led by the assistant into the sitting room, taking off his coat and sitting down on the sofa, as the young lady left him. A minute or so later, Irene Adler walked in. The view through the townhouse window wasn't perfect, but it was enough.

"Bloody hell," Moran breathed. "She's starkers."

There was the sound of laughter coming from the earpiece, as Jim saw the images coming through on his phone. He tailed off into giggles, "Oh my Ireenee- you really know how to make an impression! The poor little Virgin doesn't know what hit him!"

Moran leaned forward in disbelief as the woman straddled Holmes on the sofa, seriously intruding into his personal space. Then Watson walked in carrying something that Moran couldn't see properly at this distance and angle, even with the gun sight. Both figures on the sofa turned to talk to the army doctor.

Jim was in paroxysms of laughter again. "Oh, Johnny boy! You are going to be  _so_  JEALOUS. She's out to steal your hero; better step in and defend him like some damsel in distress." In fact, it was Sherlock who eventually stood up and handed her his coat, into which she slipped. She then perched on the chair, as the tall brunet paced.

Then, to both of the watching men's surprise, Watson left, shutting the door behind him, and leaving Irene and Sherlock conversing.

Moriarty huffed on the other end of the connection. "Next time, Moran, use your bloody initiative to get an audio feed. This is worse than a silent movie. I'd give my eye teeth- no, on second thought,  _your_  eye teeth, to be able to hear what they are saying."

A few moments later, across the street came the faint sound of a alarm going off, its insistent shrill beeping designed to be heard and not ignored.

"What's that?" Moriarty demanded impatiently.

"I think it's a smoke alarm in the hall, if memory serves." Moran sounded puzzled.

The effect on the two figures in the living room could be seen on the phone screen. Adler sat up on the sofa, concerned. Then Sherlock moved out of sight, presumably closer to the fireplace. The alarm continued its insistent piercing shriek.

Then it went off, and a moment later, the door to the living room burst open and the CIA turncoat carrying a gun came in, closely followed by two other unknowns, bundling John Watson between them into the room and pushing him down on his knees.

"Ah, the cavalry has arrived." Moran started a running commentary. "That's Neilson." He smirked. The Yank's gun had a ridiculously long silencer attached, must make it almost impossible to hit anything more than a few metres away. Still, for close work like this, he supposed it didn't matter, so long as it looked impressive enough to secure compliance.

Which was happening. John was now kneeling on the floor with his hands behind his head, and a gun pressed to the back of his neck. The other of the CIA man's men pushed Adler down on her knees, and she slowly raised her hands up to her head. Only Sherlock remained standing. Through the window all that could be seen of the tall brunet was his back and shoulders, but he too had raised his hands.

Moran could hear Jim on his earpiece. "I hope you briefed Nielson well, Sebbie, there are a lot of guns in that room and we wouldn't want the wrong people to get hurt, now would we?" There was an implied threat in the tone of his voice that sent a shiver down the sniper's back. He wished, not for the first time, that he had taken a more direct role in the operation. Inside the room, he could have stopped American enthusiasm from getting out of hand. Across the street, he just felt helpless. He fingered the trigger of his loaded rifle and felt an almost uncontrollable urge to click off the safety.

A conversation was going on between Nielson and Sherlock. Then the man who was guarding Watson, shoved him harder in the back of the neck with his pistol. The body language of everyone in the room changed, tightening visibly.

"Oooh- threats are being made!" Jim whispered in the earpiece. "And Watson's the target  _again_! Little brother is not going to like that!" Then a little crossly, "Sebbie, the idea was to make Sherlock protective of Adler, not the pet."

That provoked Moran. "We aren't in the room, boss. We don't know what is being said. Whatever it is, Nielson is doing his best to get the phone, and we just have to trust his judgement."

Moriarty sounded petulant. "I _so_ don't want to trust someone like that Yank. I mean, if he could be turned so easily, then clearly the man is not top drawer when it comes to brains."

Moran interrupted. "I think he is applying pressure on Holmes to open the safe over the fireplace." He knew it was there, after casing the place three nights ago. He needed to know that the scene between Adler and Holmes would take place there, so he could brief the CIA man properly, and be able to get line of sight into the room.

A moment later, Watson sank down further onto his knees, but the pistol did not follow him down. Sherlock moved closer to the fireplace. Something had happened to release tension in the room. There was a brief moment, then the muffled sound of a shot rang out.

Moran registered that it was the sound of a silenced Glock 17. But, he knew it wasn't Neilson's, given the length of his silencer, he wouldn't be able to hear it at this distance. And the man who had threatened Watson dropped like a stone, clearly taking the bullet that had just been fired from the direction of the fireplace. The other two Americans were all in view, and neither had fired. So, had Sherlock come to the place armed?

He didn't have time to ponder that question as all hell broke loose in the room. Watson was on his feet, Sherlock took on Nielson and even Adler got in on the act with a vicious blow to the groin of the man who was stood behind her. In a matter of seconds, the balance of power in the room shifted dramatically. One of the Americans was down, presumably dead with a point-blank bullet in him, the other two were unconscious. Adler, Sherlock and Watson were now all armed.

Jim was just laughing through the earpiece. "Told you, Sebbie. Adler and Little Brother are too smart to fall for that kind of gunplay."

The two watched as Sherlock, Watson and Adler left the room. A few moments later, the front door opened. Sherlock came out into the street, carrying Nielson's Glock, now with the ridiculous silencer removed. Watson could be heard saying, "We should call the police."

"Yes." Sherlock's reply was followed by him pointing the pistol into the air and letting off five shots in quick succession. "On their way." The sound of car breaks screeching to a halt up the road could be heard even on the camera phone, over Watson's complaining, "Oh, for God's sake."

Moriarty was still laughing. "What works faster than any phone call to the police? The sound of a couple of shots fired in Belgravia!"

From then on, the plot unfolding across the street became harder to see, as the scene shifted into rooms of the townhouse that were out of sight. Moran kept the camera phone on until the police arrived a few minutes later, in a blaze of red and blue lights, screaming sirens and cops wearing body armour pouring out of squad cars.

"I'm out of here, boss. The door-to-door enquiries will start soon, and I don't want to be here when they do." He switched the phone off, put the earpiece back in his pocket and broke down his weapon in record speed, stowing the components in the sports kit bag at his feet. A few minutes later, he had let himself out the back door and was walking up towards South Kensington tube station.

oOo

Jim Moriarty was still smiling in the flat, when the anticipated phone call came through. He had customised the ring tone for Miss Adler, the sound of a whip crack. He smirked every time he heard it.

"Ireenee- lovey to hear from you. I really did enjoy the floor show- a real striptease, who would have thought it?"

"Next time you spring a nasty surprise like that Mr Moriarty, the deal is off."Her voice was as blood red with anger as her lipstick had been.

"Relax, my little dominatrix. I was sure you'd manage to get out, all according to the plan. If you'd known in advance, your reactions wouldn't have been genuine, and the sniffer dog in him would have known. Now that you've met him, I'm sure you know what I mean. Presumably, both of you being under fire means that you and little brother have done some bonding- or should I say, bondage?"

"I was able to recover the phone, no thanks to you and your little CIA charade. I must say, I believe you may have underestimated the brains of the younger brother. He is most …able…when under pressure."

"And you obligingly provided some of the pressure, my dear. So very kind of you. I expect that Big Brother is going to be most infuriated with you. I'd lie low, if I were you. Just for a little while."

"Mr Moriarty." There was menace in her voice. "I have been patient already. I am standing here in little more than the coat I borrowed from Holmes, barefoot in the street. My assistant is probably just waking up to find herself in police custody. My house and my possessions are going to be off limits for a while, behind police tape, as they comb through it to see what evidence they can find. While my current situation can and will be remedied fairly quickly, my mood will not so easily restored. I am very, very lucky that I was able to get Holmes alone, so I could recover my phone. This was too close a call, and one I do not intend risking again. I had to drug him and thrash him to get it back and make my escape. Somehow, I don't see him having the slightest regard for me now, other than hatred and a burning desire for revenge. If this was your idea of a honey trap, I'd _hate_ to see what you'd plan if you were actually trying to make someone dislike me."

"Ireenee, stop getting those fabulous French knickers of yours in a twist. Oh, but you aren't wearing any." He could hardly keep the giggles out of his tone. "In my book, round one was a draw, but you are ahead on points. You didn't lose your phone, and you've certainly attracted the Holmes boys' attention. You may find Little Brother is now going to be obsessed by the woman who beat him. Given the fact that we had no idea whether your sex would attract him, I think you've done a splendid job. I couldn't have done it better. You'll see, you're a puzzle he can't solve, and that will really, really attract him. It's better than sex, my dear, take it from me."

She was not mollified. "I'm not convinced. When do I get a re-match?"

"Round two? Well, we have to wait a little while for the pressure on the Iceman to build up again. In the meantime, stay in touch with Little Bro- remind him that you have the whip hand. Rub it in a bit, and he will not forget you soon. Cheery bye for now." And he hung up, still giggling at the thought of leaving her glaring at the phone.


	13. Sneaky Sortie

Irene met the eye of the Chelsea apartment block concierge and told him in no uncertain terms that her handbag had just been stolen, so she would need not only to be let into the flat, but also need the spare set of keys in the building supervisor's office. He did as he was told, and she slipped into her bolt hole. When she dealt with such high profile clients as hers, it always paid to have a second, secret place- one ready for emergencies. Just like this one. She shrugged the long coat off and slipped into the cashmere robe on the back of the bathroom door. She'd fix herself a pot of tea, have a shower and then decide the next step.

As she folded up the Belstaff coat, something clattered to the floor. She picked up Sherlock's phone and smirked.  _Oh, goody! I can leave him a little present to remind him of the woman who beat him. S_ he raised the coat to her face and drew a deep breath, drawing the scent of him into her mind: an alluring melange of male sweat, very expensive cologne, something vaguely chemical and… _is that gunpowder?"_ She couldn't place the cologne, which meant it had to be very exclusive- maybe even made to his order. It would be like him, to do that. He wore his suit and that black shirt with the panache of a hand tailored fit. Nothing ostentatious, just stylish.  _Quite a contrast with Moriarty; he wears his designer labels as a slap in your face._  Irene was five foot four, but in her heels, she could look straight into James Moriarty's dark brown eyes. That wasn't possible with Sherlock. She wasn't intimidated by height, but she could see that Moriarty would take Holmes' height as one more incentive to try to best the man.  _So male, so predictable._

There was a quiet knock at the door. After taking a quick look through the spy hole, she threw open the door and her arms, to gather up a tearful Kate. "Oh my darling, are you alright?"

Irene settled her into one of the tiny flat's two comfortable arm chairs, and gave her a long look. She took in the tiredness, the stress, the crumpled and dirty blue suit. "Were the police beastly to you?"

In a small voice, Kate answered. "No, they were actually kind. The paramedic looked me over, and apart from a lump on the back of my head, I'm OK. Could do with a paracetemol, though."

Irene was already in motion to the bathroom. She returned with a couple of tablets, a tea towel wrapped around a plastic bag with a few crushed ice cubes in it, and a tumbler half full of whisky. "Take these, and tell me the gory details. What did they want to know?"

Her red-haired assistant tied back her long hair, and placed the ice pack gingerly across the back of her head and smiled, a little wickedly. "Well, I told them all a lot of lies, actually. Said I'd only been working for you for a couple of weeks, didn't know anything about you really; just managed your diary and drove you to places occasionally."

Irene smiled and patted her knee fondly. "Good girl. What they don't know won't hurt us."

"What about you, Irene; did thy hurt you?"

"No, but it was a close run thing, I have to say. I've had words with Moriarty. He can't play games with me- especially if you get hurt. I won't have that." Her brow furrowed. "I hated leaving you like that; but I had no choice. If I'd stayed, then I would not have been able to keep this." She reached into the pocket of her dressing gown and pulled out the vertu.

Kate's eyes lit up. "So, what was this Holmes fellow like? It was really rather cute, the story he spun to get in the door. I had to try so hard not to laugh at his mugged vicar disguise."

"He's… _different."_ Irene settled back in the companion arm chair and thought about the man. It was her forte, after all. In the less than twenty minutes spent in Sherlock's company today, she had learned a lot about him, but not enough to actually understand what he  _liked_. His reaction to her nudity was not typical. Watson's was more the norm. Shock, then a physical reaction- the slight flush to his face, then embarrassment at his own reaction and then irritation. She found that last reaction interesting.  _Protective_ ;  _he didn't like me doing that to him in front of Sherlock._   Moriarty had almost ignored Watson in his briefing, but she saw things that a man would miss. Like the fact that John Watson interrupted their clipped exchange about tea at the palace. "I had tea, too, at the Palace, if anyone's interested." That was Watson's attempt to break into the silent sizing up that was going on between her and Sherlock.  _Again, protective._

She looked at Kate again and continued. "And, the doctor was a surprise. Jim dismisses him as Sherlock's 'pet', but I think there is more to him that that. There is something going on between the two of them, but not what you might expect. They seem…close. "

"What did he make of your 'battle dress'!

Irene smirked. "Which one?"

Kate matched her mistress'es smile. "Oh, did you get a rise from  _both_ of them? Are you thinking a  _threesome_?

Irene shook her head. "It was most strange. Watson was the one who wanted me clothed, but it was Holmes who gave me his coat, like some gallant. Moriarty calls Holmes Junior 'the Virgin', but I don't think that actually works. He is a puzzle. He was quite  _startled_  by my nudity, but not all embarrassed. He saw enough to get my measurements right, and was smart enough to figure out that they were the code to open the safe. But…" she thought about it, "he wasn't excited by the _sight_ of me either."

Kate leaned forward and stroked Irene's hand. "Poor fool him."

She laughed. "He looked at me more as if I was an odd specimen under a microscope."

She told Kate how she had tried to flatter the consulting detective by saying that brainy was the new sexy, and asking for details about their latest case. He'd gone off into staccato deductions, spitting out the facts about the car, the driver and the hiker. But then he'd slipped in the little point about the photos.

"And I like some gullible fool, just said yes- giving him the satisfaction of having tricking me into revealing that they were somewhere in the room. Then the two of them worked a scam, set off the smoke alarm and again, like a fool, I let my anxieties lead him to the safe."

Irene saw that Kate had finished her whisky. "Another? Or tea?" Kate started to shake her head, but suddenly winced. Irene poured herself a second cup of tea as she thought over the performance.

"He's certainly smart enough to have figured out the code to the safe in time, even if those Americans hadn't showed up." She told Kate how he used opening the safe as a way of turning the tables on gunmen.

"How did he know about the gun?"

Irene shrugged her shoulders. "I'd say he guessed, but he doesn't work like that. Somehow he knew. And, one dead and two unconscious Americans later, I discover he'd just lifted the phone out of the safe. Fortunately, you on the floor of the bedroom gave me an excuse to get into the room, and then I sent the doctor off to secure the back door. Once I was alone with Holmes I used the GHB syringe in the dressing table, and managed to get the phone back. He didn't want to let go, so I had to thrash him a bit."

Kate smirked. "Ooow. That pale skin of his is going to show the bruises tomorrow."

"I think his ego will be bruised more than his skin- and I expect he won't forgive that as easily." She put her tea cup down and sat back in the chair. "Listen, why don't you go get cleaned up? I need to think for a few minutes. Then I have a bit of an expedition in mind. So, lay out some casual wear, please; I will need to blend in and do a few athletic manoeuvres." Obediently, Kate got up and disappeared into the bedroom.

She was still outraged at Moriarty's added little twist- the CIA man clearly had designs on her phone, but she suspected that he was working for the Irishman. What she had in terms of incriminating photos wasn't worth risking a team in the UK like that.  _I don't trust Moriarty at all._  He'd have the phone off her if he could get it, and then taunt her into producing that MOD code in exchange. She needed that code to get her safe passage from Holmes Senior, even if she could pull Sherlock into some indiscretion.

Her original idea was beginning to sound better by the minute. If she could trick Sherlock into breaking the code, that would be the perfect solution. Mycroft Holmes would never be able to live that one down. Protecting his brother from a charge of treason would be just the leverage she needed. Once her demands were met, she'd turn him over to Moriarty and be gone from the UK forever.

So, how to entice Sherlock Holmes? She already knew from today that a straight sex ploy would probably not work. But Jim might be right. Taunt him about his failure to best her at the game; yes, that might be even more enticing. Moriarty certainly was enchanted by the tall brunet's ability to play games and solve puzzles. He'd spent one evening over dinner recounting each of the five puzzles he'd set the consulting detective, and how the man had solved them every time.  _Moriarty's lonely; he lacks a playmate at his level. I'll bet Sherlock is the same. This will be about gamesmanship._

oOo

Irene slipped up the fire escape steps between 220 and 221 Baker Street. She stopped at the edge of the window and peered in carefully. Kate was waiting in the car around the corner. It was dusk, that perfect time of night when lights would be on in a flat, but the curtains not yet drawn. The window looked onto a hallway; probably between the bedrooms and the living and kitchen areas. And it was unlocked.

"I think it's the doctor who's sitting in the living room. I can see someone sitting in a chair, back to the kitchen and the hall. Too short for the lovely Holmes."

The instructions came through the earpiece attached to her phone. Kate had played lookout enough in her time to know exactly what intelligence she would need to break and enter into Baker Street.

Irene was through the window and down the hall in a moment, and then grateful to discover that the bedroom door was not actually firmly shut, but cracked a bit. She smirked.  _How sweet._  The doctor wants to keep an ear out to see if his flatmate is still sleeping it off.

She slipped into the room and closed the door behind her silently. Then she pulled the Belstaff coat off her shoulders, and hung it back up on the hook. She'd already done her bit with the phone she'd found in the pocket. It wasn't locked.  _Silly boy; you just don't know who might do something naughty to it!_

Sherlock was stretched out on his stomach on the bed, like a starfish, and she could hear the deep breathing of a drug-induced slumber. She clambered onto the bed and turned him. His arms were surprisingly heavy, but the movment seemed to wake him a bit. As he groaned and moved onto his back, she straddled him. "Now, where were we, Mr Holmes, before we were so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes, you were telling me about that hiker, the car and the driver. I've figured it out now. Got it!"

Sherlock mumbled something and tried to open his eyes.

"Oh, shush now. Don't get up. I'll do the talking. So, the car's about to backfire…and the hiker, he's staring at the sky. Now, you said he could be watching birds, but he wasn't, was he? He's watching another kind of flying thing. The car backfires and the hiker turns to look…which was his big mistake. By the time the driver looks up, the hiker's already dead. What he doesn't see is what killed him because it's already being washed downstream. An accomplished sportsman recently returned from foreign travel with …a boomerang. You got that from one look?  _Definitely_  the new sexy."

Sherlock has been looking at her through blinking eyes through the whole monologue. Now his brain finally woke up enough to be able to move his tongue. "I…"

"Hush now." Irene lent over him and kissed the side of his mouth, leaving a red lipstick imprint. "It's OK. I'm only returning your coat." With that she slipped off the bed and out of the room, as Sherlock struggled to get his brain back on line.

He jerked back into consciousness and stuttered a confused "John?"

As Irene slid the window back down, she heard a louder " _JOHN!"_ then the sound of a body hitting the floor.  _Ouch_ ,  _yet more bruises_ , she thought as she crept back down the fire escape steps.

When she was safe in the backseat of the car, and Kate was on her way back to Chelsea, she took out her phone and started typing a text message,

**6.58pm Till the next time, Mr Holmes.**


	14. Intelligence Secrets

When Mycroft first laid eyes on his brother, he made his disapproval so evident that John smirked. Mycroft then put his thoughts into words. "Not like you to get caught by a fist, little brother. Reaction times getting a little slow?" That provoked an annoyed look from Sherlock. It sat uncomfortably alongside the bruised red cheek and the slightly dark left eye socket.

"Oh, I did that." John said from the table, where he was enjoying the boiled egg and toast that Mrs Hudson had just delivered.

That made Mycroft look at the doctor in surprise. "As often as I suspect he provokes you to it, I would not have expected physical assault to be part of a doctor's repertoire."

"He asked me to do it, honest." He hoped his grin looked innocent.

"All part of the disguise, Mycroft." This was muttered tersely by Sherlock.

The elder Holmes did not take off his coat, but meandered about the room. John realised that whereas Sherlock paced like a caged animal, his brother walked in stately procession. The man’s superior tone matched; "So, I assume that the Woman got the better of you, Sherlock. You were unable to recover her phone."

Sherlock stopped chewing, and put the toast soldier back down on his plate. "I did  _recover_  it, Mycroft, just didn't manage to  _keep_  it, after she drugged and thrashed me."

John winced. He'd made the mistake of barging into the bathroom earlier this morning while Sherlock was shaving, and saw three vicious red welts across his right forearm. "Christ, did  _she_  do that?"

Sherlock glowered at him in the mirror. "Yes," through clenched teeth. "She also added a little more to your efforts," he said flinching slightly as he dragged the razor across the right side of his face.

"She  _punched_ you _?_  John did not hide his incredulity.

"Not quite. Think more of a full-on slap."

John narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t like Sherlock to be caught flat-footed.

"I was drugged at the time, John, and not able to put up much of a fight."

Now an hour later, he and Sherlock were having breakfast. Mrs Hudson was cooking breakfast in the kitchen. On the coffee table, Mycroft had placed the little grey box, which was now winking its green light in time with his pacing.

Sherlock finished his boiled egg and picked up the newspaper. "The photographs are perfectly safe."

"In the hands of fugitive sex worker." Mycroft's irritation was evident in his choice of language.

Sherlock just dismissed his concern. "She's not interested in blackmail. She wants…protection for some reason. I take it you've stood down the police investigation into the shooting at her house?"

"How can we do anything while she has the photographs? Our hands are tied."

Sherlock smirked. "She'd applaud your choice of words. You see how this works: that camera phone is her "Get out of jail free" card. You have to leave her alone. Treat her like royalty, Mycroft."

Now it was John's turn to smile, as he chipped in, "Though not the way she treats royalty."

oOo

Mycroft decided not to hide his annoyance at the doctor’s quip. Both John and Sherlock were not treating this with the importance it deserved. Mycroft really was in a foul temper this morning. Not only had his little brother failed to get the phone, it also meant that the best chance of getting an insider to set up Moriarty had slipped out of his grasp. He was beginning to question the very idea of working with Sherlock to tackle Moriarty. If truth be told, he was distressed at the mess that had been left behind at the Belgravia townhouse, which was embarrassing. Tolerable if the mission had succeeded, but deeply embarrassing when it clearly had not. People who had been questioning his infallibility recently now had yet another example of his all-to-human failure. And his brother had been humiliated by the Woman.

Just then the sound of a woman's orgasmic sigh filled the room. The incongruity of it provoked a frown from Mycroft.

John asked the obvious question, provoking a terse one word answer from Sherlock- "text." His brother got up and went to look at his phone, but didn't reply. Instead, he turned to Mycroft and asked rather acerbically, "Did you know that there were other people after her, too, Mycroft, before you sent John and me in there? CIA-trained killers, at an excellent guess."

His brother returned to the table, and John added his two pennies' worth. "Yeah, thanks for that, Mycroft."

He was as disturbed as they were by the appearance of Langley agents on the scene - no, worse. It was _unexpected_. His enquiries about it this morning at Grosvenor Square had been politely but firmly deflected. After the loss of the MOD code, and American fears about compromising their joint operation, Mycroft was being punished in some way by being kept in the dark. It rankled very deeply. It was made worse by the fact that Sherlock had been threatened by them. That much Mycroft had learned from the police report filed by Lestrade after last night's interview with Watson. The whole thing made Mycroft re-think the idea of involving Sherlock in his efforts to take on Moriarty. Not for the first time, the elder Holmes wondered what the connection was between Adler and the Irishman.  _Who is playing whom in this game?_

Mrs Hudson arrived from the kitchen with a plate of fresh toast, and set it down beside Sherlock, before commenting "It's a disgrace, sending your little brother into danger like that. Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes."

It was testament to his bad mood that before he could think, he snapped, "Oh, shut up, Mrs Hudson."

Sherlock was outraged, John startled. In unison, they shouted " _MYCROFT!"_

There was a split second of silence as he felt everyone's eyes on him. He cringed at his own slip, and said contritely, "apologies."

Mrs Hudson looked hurt at first, but she accepted the apology.

Sherlock followed her thanks with his own comment, "Though do, in fact, shut up."

Before she could react to Sherlock's rudeness, the phone sighed again. Mrs Hudson expressed her disapproval of the rude noise. Sherlock looked at the phone briefly, before responding to Mycroft's displeasure.

"There's nothing you can do and nothing she will do as far as I can see."

He was annoyed by that answer, and retorted that he could put her under maximum surveillance.

Mycroft was surprised by Sherlock's rejoinder. "Why bother? You can follow her on Twitter, where I believe her user name is 'The Whip Hand'. "

Sarcastically, Mycroft replied "Yes, most amusing." He was about to ask why Sherlock didn't want to pursue her when his own phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket. Seeing the caller ID was Elizabeth Ffoukes, he made his excuses and went out into the hall for privacy as he answered.

"Elizabeth. How nice of you to call."

The MI6 DG on the other end of the phone decided it wasn't time to be polite. "Mycroft. I thought we'd agreed that the American's needed to be kept sweet on this. Now I hear that your little brother has got himself into some hot water with a Langley team who were on an operation to recover stolen intelligence secrets, specifically that bloody MOD code that we've already had words about. I've been on the phone this morning trying to smooth things over, but really- twice in a fortnight? This is uncharacteristically sloppy of you. I expect better."

 _Now the pigeons are coming home to roost._  "Elizabeth." His voice was at its calmest and most controlled. "It appears that liaison needs to be two way to sustain a special relationship. Perhaps the Americans need to be reminded that they are guests in our country and should keep us informed of their plans for covert operations. If I had  _known_  about their plans, I would certainly not have been attempting something along the same lines at the same time. Regrettably, their people and mine coincided."

There was a sniff of disagreement on the other end of the line. "And in the confusion, the suspect got away. Bad news all around. Won't do our reputation any good, I have to say."

Mycroft was at his most emollient. "She may still have the MOD code, but is no nearer to breaking it than she was a month ago. It's still safe to go. Just tell them." He glanced down at his watch. "I need to bring this call to a close, Elizabeth. I am due at the Palace in a half hour." He started to walk back down the hall, hoping she would take the hint and say goodbye.

As he opened the door to the living room again, he heard Watson say "I'm not stupid you know."

Sherlock's reply, "Where do you get that idea?" came at the same time as Elizabeth asked "Are you  _really_ sure, Mycroft? Can we be sure?"

Distracted by two conversations at once, his reply was terse. "Bond Air is go, that's decided. Check with the Coventry lot. Talk later." He hung up on her. Rude, but necessary, especially as Sherlock was looking suspiciously at him.

"What else does she have?"

For a moment, Mycroft thought that Sherlock had somehow deduced that he’d just been speaking to the MI6 DG. Thankfully, his brother misunderstood his confusion and supplied the answer to his unasked question.

"Irene Adler. The Americans wouldn't be interested in her for a couple of compromising photographs. There's more."

Sherlock stood up and approached Mycroft, subjecting him to that forensic scrutiny of his. Whatever he saw in his brother's face led him to say, "Much more."

Mycroft held himself very still, his stony gaze unmoved as Sherlock came into his personal space.

"Something big's coming, isn't it?"

His suspicion clinched the decision for Mycroft.  _That's it. We've done._  "Irene Adler is no longer any concern of yours. From now on, you will stay out of this."

Sherlock never took orders well, so he bristled. "Oh, will I?"

"Yes, Sherlock, you will." The two brothers locked eyes.

Perhaps it was the certainty with which Mycroft delivered the statement, or perhaps an unstated apology for his failure.  _Or maybe the effects of the oxytocin?_ But, this time it was Sherlock who blinked. He shrugged and turned away.

Mycroft smiled. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend.

Sherlock picked up his violin as Mycroft turned to go; "Do give her my love." The sarcasm was evident. To rub it in, he started playing "God Save the Queen". Mycroft could still hear the strains of the national anthem as he got into the government car waiting for him.


	15. Re-fortification

For the next few days, Sherlock kept up with the pretence. He didn't mention The Woman again, and when John put on his doctor face to take a look at the welts on his arms and check the progress of his facial bruising, he patiently submitted to the scrutiny.

He spent a lot of time lying on the sofa wearing his "do-not-disturb-on–pain-of-insult" look. John delivered cups of tea, decaffeinated black coffee (two sugars) and Angelo's twice-daily delivery of food at depressingly regular intervals, and handed him the doses of oxytocin, one in the morning, one in the evening. Every attempt made by his flatmate to engage him in conversation was either ignored or answered with a single monosyllabic word. For the first day, John just kept eying him with an expression that was halfway between concern and frustration. When John lost his temper on the second day, and demanded to know what was going on, Sherlock didn't even open his eyes but said "I told you once that I don't talk for days on end. This is one of those times. Get over it."

Talk was the last thing he wanted to do. He was wandering the corridors of his Mind Palace, trying to deduce the possible connections between what happened in Belgravia and the 'something big' coming that his brother had denied was either big or coming. If Mycroft thought he could bully Sherlock into avoiding the issue, he was going to be sadly mistaken. Sherlock's frustration with the whole business began to obsess on the fact that if his brother had bothered to tell them that the CIA was also after Adler's phone, then he would have done things differently. His "failure" lay squarely on the shoulders of his brother, who had denied him crucial intelligence. Part of the time while he was lying on the sofa, listening to John watching crap TV in the background, he was in the middle of a ranting conversation in his head with Mycroft.

"You said you would  _share_  intelligence; we'd do this  _together_. And at the first opportunity, what do you do? Hide something so crucial that it nearly got us killed."

He could imagine his brother's sneer. "You've heard of the concept 'need to know', Sherlock. I can't tell you everything. You're not responsible enough to be given state secrets."

It was annoying how often one scene kept replaying in his head- the one where the American put the gun to John's head and started counting.

"Mycroft, you couldn't have  _engineered_  a more effective way to show Moriarty, yet again, that John is my weakness. Did you think that one through, really? If I had known, I would have found a way to keep him out of it. The Woman saw it all; and now that she's out there walking free, I'm sure she's passed the news onto him, too. Wouldn't you, if you were in her place?" At times like these, he wanted to throttle his devious brother.

By the end of the second day, he'd had enough cranial shouting matches with his brother to ease some of his frustration. He'd learned long ago that he  _needed_  these conversations to take place in the privacy of his own mind, lest he say something he'd really regret later. He knew that one of his weaknesses was that his brain moved faster than his mouth; the mismatch speeds had got him into so much trouble as a child that he'd learned to hold his own counsel and think things through, when it really mattered. And right now, it really mattered.

"There's more…much more." His last words to his brother kept rattling around his head like marbles in a tin can. After two solid days, he was getting frustrated. If Mycroft was going to cheat, then why should he stick to the rules? He needed something to stimulate, to cut through the relentless flow of rubbish data that was driving his brain into ever decreasing circles. Without stimulation, he wouldn't get the focus. A cigarette would do nicely. Direct transmission of nicotine to the brain's neurotransmitters- it beat the slow feed of a nicotine patch hands down. John was currently rationing the nicotine patches. Patches take  _forever._   _EEG measures of cortical activation show that nicotine inhaled through cigarette smoke reaches the brain within ten seconds._ When John wasn't looking, Sherlock kept picking at his patch; the skin under it itched when he stared at it, wanting  _more_.

When he wasn't fantasising about cigarettes, his mind kept wandering back to the codeine linctus he'd had for three nights when beating off the dregs of his cough. _Glorious_. Somehow, he had to get the dopamine release that came when he forced himself to stay awake in balance with the dopamine reuptake delay of an opiate. He knew that once the perfect equilibrium was achieved, his brain would operate at maximum efficiency. Only then would he be able to think his way out of this mess. Of course, cocaine would work best. It increased by 350% the amount of dopamine in his system. But, somehow, he didn't think John or Mycroft would forgive a relapse at this stage.

Codeine was actually in the house, somewhere; to find it, he'd have to shift John out of the flat.

On the third day, John came down in the morning to find Sherlock yet again stretched out on the sofa with his eyes closed.

"Did you sleep here all night?"

He opened his eyes. "No."

John looked at the ceiling for a moment and then back down at him. "Let me rephrase that; did you lie here awake all night?"

"Yes." He closed them again.

The sound of footsteps marching away in annoyance was followed by a sigh from the kitchen. Then the sound of the kettle being filled, plugged in and switched on.

The fridge door opened, and Sherlock could hear John pushing stuff around to get at the milk carton. "Have you had this morning's dose?"

Sherlock nodded.

"Sherlock?"

He hated repeating himself, so he didn't.

"I asked you a question." John had put on his 'doctor's voice' and was now back in the living room, judging from the proximity of the sound.

Sherlock opened one eye to look at him with his peripheral vision, wanting to judge the expression on his face before replying. He stifled his urge to smirk. He needed to get under John's skin if this campaign was going to work, and by the look on his flatmate’s face, it was working. So, he decided to add fuel to the fire.

"I nodded."

"When you knew I was in the kitchen and couldn't see you… What part of your experience of me suggests I can see through walls? It's just common courtesy to reply to a question."

"What part of your experience of me suggests that I am either common or courteous?"

John just huffed in frustration and walked back into the kitchen. Sherlock could almost visualise the doctor’s thought process. It was clearly going to be one of 'those' days. Sherlock's war of attrition was beginning to tell, even on John's unusually high level of patience.

The cup of tea without milk and a bowl of fresh fruit were delivered to the coffee table. "I'm going out once I get dressed. I need to go shopping because we- no, let me re-phrase that,  _YOU-_ need more fruit. "

Sherlock just kept silent. If John thought he was going to feel grateful for his shopping expedition on this occasion after all the times of being taken for granted before now, he was sadly mistaken. Sherlock had learned within the first few weeks of their living together that as much as John would moan about it, he actually didn't mind the food foraging expeditions. It gave him an excuse to get out of the flat, "get some air" as he described it. The phrase made Sherlock wonder why the oxygen inside the flat could possibly have a chemical composition different from that outside, apart from the additional aromas that came from John's cooking and the two humans who lived in the flat. Before his mind could go off on that tangent, he heard the shower go on. His nose picked out the scent of John's body and hair wash.  _Why choose one cheap product to do both, John? Skin and hair collect dirt in different ways and need different chemical processes to remove it._  It was another unfathomable aspect of his flatmate's behaviour.

He started thinking about the chemical differences between codeine and cocaine ( _C18H21NO3 versus C17H21NO4_ ,  _a phenanthrenic alkaloid methylation of morphine and a methyl ester of benzoylecgonine)_. How the addition of one carbon and one nitric oxide molecule could make such a difference. Of the two molecules, nitric oxide was the more interesting: the by-product of combustion of engines, the electrical discharge of lightening, the signalling molecule in so many physiological processes; a powerful vasodilator with a half-life of only a few seconds in the blood (anticipation was increasing his vasodilation, just by thinking about it _)_.

John might be saying something, but Sherlock's mind was elsewhere. However, the sound of the front door closing brought him to the surface. Within a matter of seconds, Sherlock was up the stairs and into his flatmate's room. A quick scan and a brief think revealed John's idea of a hiding place. He found the bottle tucked into one of the rugby boots in John's sports kit.

He went downstairs to find a five ml spoon. No need to go overboard, so a measured dose of two spoons would keep him just within bounds of normal tolerance. It was a co-codamol linctus where 30mg of codeine phosphate is combined with 250 mg of paracetamol. For today's purposes, he'd have preferred neat codeine; too much acetaminophen had an unfortunate side effect with him of making him sleepy. Taken together with the antihistimine last week, it had been enough to put him out like a light for the three nights. Even without the antihistimine, he'd need to counteract it, so he raided his stash and slapped on another nicotine patch.  _What I wouldn't give right now for a cigarette._  He started to replace the bottle in the shoe, but then stopped, looking suspiciously to see if there were any signs that John had marked the volume.  _Yes! There it is- a blue marker pen line._  He rubbed it off the glass, went downstairs and found the pen John had used, marking the new volume. Then he replaced the bottle and went back down stairs to resume his position on the sofa. By his calculation, orally taken codeine would take about eight minutes to start hitting his system. With the nicotine to keep the paracetemol at bay, he estimated about 70 minutes of high-octane brainwork before the sleepiness started to kick in. As he settled back onto the leather, he hummed the first sixteen bars of Bach's bouree from the Partita number 3, and made a mental note to amend the sheet music on his current project, transcribing the Vivaldi cello sonata number 7 in A minor for violin. His brain was starting to  _hummmmm._


	16. Smokescreen

When John returned to the flat a little over an hour and a half later, the doctor's mood was better. He'd taken the opportunity of being out to get a coffee and relax a bit. Sherlock watching wasn't a pastime he particularly enjoyed when the man wasn't working his brain, and he was starting to think about resuming his locum work. Apart from the silence, Sherlock was behaving himself. The oxytocin seemed to have a calming effect. There had been no cases for three days. Normally, by now the consulting detective would be climbing the walls and shouting 'bored', or at least trying to figure out how to get something lethal to grow on a body part snatched from Barts.  _Thank God for small mercies in a convenient nasal spray._

After he put the shopping bags down on the kitchen table, he went out into the living room to check on Sherlock, who was still comatose on the sofa.

"You're going to start getting bed sores if you don't move occasionally. Or maybe they should be called 'sofa sores' in your case."

No reply. The brunet was still in his thinking position, breathing deeply. His face was a little flushed, and that made John wonder if he was running a low grade fever. He started to reach down to feel a forehead when he realised that his flatmate was asleep. He stopped, realising that if Sherlock had been awake all night he needed sleep more than he needed to be checked for a possible fever.

He put the groceries away and had just opened his laptop when his phone went off. A pair of grey green eyes snapped open, just as John got to his jacket to fish the offending item out of his pocket. John looked at the screen and recognised Lestrade's number.

"Hi,Greg." Sherlock sat up and looked expectantly at him.

Knowing that his side of the conversation would not be heard by Sherlock, Lestrade got straight to the point. "Hi, John; is he well enough to take on a case? I trust your judgement, but after three days, my guess is that one or the other of you is going to be killed soon. I've got a crime that has …passed muster, if you catch my drift, but if he's bored enough, it should do, according to Mycroft.”

While the DI was talking, John just mouthed “ a case” silently to Sherlock and saw his eyes light up with excitement.

"Yeah, well, I think the answer to that is…yes," as he watched Sherlock launch himself off the couch and run down the hall. "Give me the address," as he scrabbled around for a pen and a scrap of paper.

Sherlock appeared ten minutes later, dressed in his usual suit. But, before he put on his coat, he headed into the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out John's jar of strawberry jam. He fished in a drawer for a spoon and starting eating straight from the jar. John watched in amazement. "Hungry? Why don't you just help yourself to some of my favourite jam?"

Sherlock said nothing, and John wondered whether one of the side-effects of the oxytocin was slight hypoglycemia.*

oOo

The crime scene was an alleyway between a rundown high street shopping precinct and the back wall of a block of garages, behind an east London housing estate. Littered with rubbish, the narrow street had a half dozen officers standing about as the forensic team carefully emptied the contents of the commercial rubbish bin that belonged to a Chinese take-away restaurant. Black plastic bin liners had already been cut open to reveal three human arms. Anderson was picking through a fourth bag.

On the steps leading out the back of the restaurant was a young oriental woman who was shouting hysterically. Lestrade stood by, looking unhappy. He sent two of the officers away to do door-to-door enquiries at the block of flats; "concentrate on the second floor on up to the roof, this side, someone might have seen something out of their windows."

HE walked over to Sherlock and John. "We've already taken into the station three men, two of whom are cooks, the other some sort of waiter. Not one has said a single word. She's the cleaner, and doesn't speak English. We're waiting on a translator."

Sherlock frowned. "Which language did you ask for?"

Greg looked at him. "Is this a trick question? Chinese, of course."

The brunet just smirked. "Better call them again, Lestrade. To start with, it could have been either Mandarin or Cantonese, and not every police translator will speak both. But, in this case, you're really stuck, because I think she is a Uyghur. Best bet is to find someone who speaks Turkish."

Lestrade and John just looked at him. The doctor was the first one to ask the obvious question. "How the hell do you know the difference between Mandarin, Cantonese and this other thing that I've never even heard of before?"

Sherlock just rolled his eyes. "I speak eleven languages, John, and the historic roots of most central Asian cultures are shared in the Turkic language. I speak Cantonese and Mandarin. I'm fluent in Arabic and can read Persian, but haven't got around to Turkish yet. We'll have to wait for a translator to interrogate her. But, there's enough to be getting on with now. The tattoos, for example."

This time it was the DI who asked the question. "What tattoos?"

Sherlock smirked. "Are you  _really_  so blind?" He walked over to the body parts, pulled on his latex gloves and started to pick up one of the arms.

"Hey, don't touch that!" John flinched at Anderson's bellow. Sherlock just completely ignored him. Lestrade told the CSE to back off, as Sherlock moved the three arms so they lay side by side, with the upper shoulders exposed. On each was the same tattoo- inside a black circle, a stylised green eagle attacking a red dragon.

Anderson stood with his arms folded, a scowl on his face. "So, what? Three Chinese men visited the same tattoo parlour. It's not a tong symbol; I've already done your trick to check on the internet."

Sherlock drew a deep breath as if he was about to let loose, but then stopped. "Actually, Anderson, it isn't worth the breath to argue with you. Yes, of course, the arms belong to oriental men. That much is easy enough, even for you to deduce. But this isn't a standard tattoo. It's a Manichean symbol- the force of Good attacking Evil; in this case, probably one of the Uyghur Resistance movements attacking the Chinese National Army. There's a minor civil war going on in Xianjiang province- that's the far western borders of China, right up against Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And, guess what, these arms belong to people who are not Han Chinese. Skin colour is just….wrong. As wrong as you are."

"We'll have to wait for the translator to find out more." Sherlock used his phone to take a photo of the tattoo, and then stood up. "John, could you take a really close look at the arms? We need a medical opinion about whether the people to whom these were once attached could survive the amputation, as well as whether it was done by a medical professional. While you do that, I'm going to have a look around."

As John bent down to take a closer look, Sherlock strode off toward the steps into the restaurant. Lestrade called out "Pritchard!" to one of the constables helping at the bins.

That made Sherlock stop. He turned and glared at the DI. "No, not Pritchard. If you really must, then assign Robbins."

"Why?"

He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Oh, does it  _really_  matter which one?!"

Greg thought about it for a moment, and then shrugged. "Right. Robbins, go with him, please."

Robbins trotted along so he could catch up as the man he was supposed to be 'babysitting' went into the restaurant, which was being searched by more Forensic officers. All of Lestrade's team knew the routine; it was a given. The civilian detective was to be accompanied by an officer if the doctor was otherwise engaged. Looking around, Robbins couldn't see the consulting detective. One of the CSE officers on his knees looking under tables pointed over his shoulder and said, "He went right on through and out the front door." When he followed, he saw the brunet leaning down to read the menu in the window of the restaurant.

"Why me, sir?"

Sherlock frowned. "I've not got a knighthood, so you can drop the 'sir', constable." The PC felt the full force of the man's scrutiny, and felt awkward.

"You have one redeeming feature that PC Pritchard doesn't."

"What's that?" the young man was almost afraid to ask.

"Unlike him, you can give me a cigarette out of the pack you have in your pocket, and lend me your lighter, as well."

"Oh." He pulled out his cigs and lighter. "Mind if I join you? Ever since the Guv gave up, he won't let me smoke anywhere near him. Can't smoke in the office either, so it's getting hard."

"Try sharing a flat with a doctor; I can assure you, it's worse."

He watched Sherlock light up, and then hand back the pack and lighter. Before he could get his own lit, the taller man pulled the first drag of smoke deep into his lungs, closing his eyes in almost ecstatic bliss. The constable smiled. "I can't do that- fully inhale; just too much of a good thing."

The second deep drag on the cigarette was broken off by a cough. This brought a chuckle from Robbins and earned him a glare from the detective.

"I'm recovering from pneumonia, so my throat is bound to be a little sensitive at the moment," he growled.

After a companionable couple of minutes spent smoking in silence, the constable asked whether they needed to get on with the investigation.

"What investigation?" When Robbins looked confused, Sherlock just finished his cigarette. "I solved this one ten minutes ago; just needed an excuse to get away so I could have a smoke. We can go back now."

When they returned, Lestade asked. "Find anything?" Sherlock shook his head. The DI's phone rang, so he waved Sherlock on to where John was standing now by the arms. Anderson was glaring at him.

"Are we looking for bodies or amputees, Doctor?" He liked rubbing Anderson's nose in the fact that John Watson's advice would always be based on his professional medical skills, rather than some month-long anatomy training module at the Forensic Service.

John frowned a bit. "Bodies- but not the way you are thinking. The arms were cut off post mortem. Done by someone skilled in butchery, but not in medicine." He pointed to the bones, where they had been sawn. "Definitely not orthopaedic saws."

Sherlock grunted. He looked down at his phone and started flicking through internet pages.

Lestrade came up to the pair. "Bad news. We're going to have to take the cleaner down to the station and wait. The Yard's only Turkish interpreter contact is at Heathrow right now trying to deal with a Border Agency issue. It could be hours."

Sherlock shook his head and showed Lestrade the image on his phone screen. "Just check out the Halal butcher four streets over, between the bookshop and the Fish and Chip. Number 228 on the High Street.” He gestured at the arms, “This is the result of an internecine struggle between two different Uyghur factions. The Islamic group has been fighting a Manichean faction over who is the legitimate resistance. Given the evidence, the Islamic faction is trying to pin the murders on the Chinese, as a way of covering up their tracks. A bit of DNA testing at the shop should find some human blood as well as goat, lamb and beef. Hopefully, no horsemeat. We're done here, John."

Greg Lestrade just watched as the tall brunet strode off, heading back out of the alleyway, already on the lookout for a passing taxi. The rest of the crime scene team were standing around a bit shell-shocked. The DI laughed. "If you could see your faces….alright then. Robbins and Pritchard, you're with me, and Anderson, too. We have a butcher to go see."

oOo

In the taxi back to Baker Street, John gave Sherlock a suspicious look. "I smell cigarette smoke." He leaned over more toward the brunet who was concentrating on his phone. Sherlock heard an exaggerated sniff. "Have you been smoking?"

He didn't look up from the phone. "Robbins smoked a cigarette while he was with me at the restaurant. Says Lestrade shouts at him if he tries it anywhere near him." He kept flicking through internet pages, ignoring John's scowl.

"Sherlock….that doesn't answer my question."

But Sherlock did not reply. His mind, abuzz with nicotine and still enjoying the after effects of the codeine, had returned to the problem he'd been considering earlier. _Something's coming, something big. This was just a smokescreen put up by Mycroft to keep me distracted. What's he hiding from me?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * author's note: hypoglycaemia and the resultant craving for sugary foods is a common side effect of codeine and other opiate ingestion.


	17. Secret Weapon

**Chapter Seventeen: Secret Weapon**

Irene Adler was not used to lying low. It wasn't in the blood, and it certainly didn't help her professional reputation. She had to change her patterns of behaviour and that upset some of her clients. The Goring Hotel was off limits now. In any case, HRH had stopped returning her texts and calls. She suspected Mycroft Holmes' hand behind that.

Assuming that she would be on Mycroft Holmes's radar now, she made sure to be seen in public in her usual style, going about her business. She had to let him know that she retained the upper hand, but that she was not a threat.  _Aware, but not provoked- at least not until Round Two begins._

No, the person she really needed protection from was the consulting criminal. The longer it took for her to get Sherlock to break that MOD code, the more the Irishman would be tempted to take matters into his own hands. She was under no illusions- that CIA escapade was squarely aimed at her, so she was taking no further chances. She was determined to keep secret the Chelsea bolt hole from him. All of her phone work was now done from public places. She forbade Kate from using her phone on in the flat. They both used circuitous routes to get there, and disguised their entries and exits to the block of flats. It was a nuisance, but it worked. She had hidden her phone with the photos- somewhere safe, and was using another now. No need to tempt either Moriarty or Mycroft Holmes into a second attempt.

She was perfectly capable of camouflaging herself with normality, blending into the background of London life. Her favourite persona was the university student. Stripped of makeup, with her hair worn down and loose, over a baggy LSE sweatshirt and unfashionable jeans, Adler was hardly recognisable. Add slightly tinted aviator glasses, Ugg boots, sling a back pack over one shoulder to unsettle her walk, and even Kate shook her head. "That outfit doesn't exactly bring out the best in you, does it?"

Irene shook her head, "Precisely. That's why it works every time. Sex is in the clothes we wear, the way we walk, talk and hold ourselves. Take all those away, and what have you got?"

"Boring."

"Yes, my dear. Right now, boring is safe."

"So, when does Round Two begin?"

"Be patient, Kate."

It was a mantra that Irene had to keep repeating to herself, too. She'd had a good hard think about the Sherlock problem. If she was going to use him to break the Code, she was going to have to lead him to it gently. Her initial thought would be to keep top of mind with him by engaging in a little textual foreplay. But, none of her texts sparked a reply. She'd kept them slightly old fashioned and yet suggestive.  _Imagine trying to text a celibate vicar._  That disguise of his really was a give-away. No full frontal sex appeal would work; she needed to seduce his mind.

The Irishman had coaxed the younger Holmes out with a series of games, each more deadly than the other. Not her scene. She didn't hurt people- well, only as much as they actually  _liked_. But, after thrashing the tall brunet to get her phone back, she knew he wasn't the type who wanted to be dominated.  _Probably has daddy issues._  So, she was going to have to find something else to intrigue him.

Hence her appointment today with a professor of mathematics at Imperial College- one of the finest minds in pure maths in the country. Fortunately for her, he was also a man with a taste for humiliation. She was happy to oblige, in exchange for some insight into his other great passions- geocaching and codes. She had been most disappointed at his inability to crack her MOD code, and even more annoyed when he said the only one who would be able to break it was the Irishman he'd met when he was a visiting Research Fellow at Dublin University. "Smartest man I ever knew; got so bored with teaching, I swear he was going to kill the Dean just for the fun of it. Lasted one term before he resigned, describing all students as, and I quote, 'a fecking waste of time'. Didn't go down well with the faculty, but fortunately for him, the criminal fraternity whom he decided to cultivate didn't need a reference, except from previously satisfied criminals." This little man had been her entry to Moriarty, a genius he assured her, who "would know what to do with all those delicious photos you've collected over the years."

She was now sitting across the desk from her professor, having signed up online for a one hour 'tutorial'. The man was frankly rather fond of his food. Short and rotund, he made no effort to attract the opposite sex, but it didn't matter. "People respect me for my mind, Miss Adler. I get all the ego stroking I want from the students and faculty here. What I'm looking for from you is something rather different." She was a believer in diversity; whatever her clients  _liked_ , she was prepared to at least consider.

He locked the door behind her and started to unbutton his shirt. She put a hand out to stop him, her blood red nail polish looking far too smart for the student outfit she was wearing.

"Just hold that thought, Professor. Before the pain must come a little pleasure, or should I say the reverse?"

He pouted.

"Sit down." He followed the order. She remained standing on the other side of the desk.

"I need something from you, before I can treat you with the disrespect you want. I need the toughest, most interesting, most challenging little coded brain teaser that you can produce. And I need it to be in the shape of a treasure hunt, all across West London."

He looked intrigued as she climbed right over the desk and ended up sitting straddled across his lap. With her hands pinning his shoulders back in the chair, she continued, "These puzzles need to involve a lot of sequential steps, breaking codes and collecting information that is needed to solve an even bigger puzzle. Think of it as geocaching on mathematical steroids. No one 'ordinary' is going to be able to follow your clues and claim the prize. The invitation to play, to go search, will only ever be sent to one man. Think of a treasure hunt that you get to make so fiendishly difficult that  _no one_  could solve it."

He was watching with ever increasing excitement. She could feel the arousal result from where she was sitting in his lap- "Brainy is the new sexy, Professor, so prepare to show off and excite me."

With her index finger, she lifted his chin to he could stare straight into her deep blue eyes. "I need your very best work, professor; give me something that would keep Moriarty in awe of your brainpower, as if you could watch him dance to your tune."

That killed it. A look of panic entered the academic's eyes. "No, no…" he was literally trying to push her off his lap. "The man's a psycho; he'd  _kill_  me if I tried to beat him in a  _game._  And, besides, I couldn't win; not against him." The round face was suddenly perspiring, flushed red and clearly terrified.

She tightened her grip, locking her legs around his waist, making it hard for him to dislodge her. "Relax, darling- I'm not going to put you in the firing line. Moriarty is as far away from this as I can get him. The target for your puzzle isn't the great man himself, but someone else, someone that I think can break that code which you couldn't."

He just managed to stop himself from hyperventilating. He was now looking owlishly at her through his slightly misted round glasses. He sniffed, a little suspiciously. "Does such a person exist?"

"I believe he does, and I'm willing to test that hypothesis, using a brain teaser from you as the proof I need, before I risk showing him what I showed you."

She smiled at the fact that her words pricked his jealousy. He didn't mind being second to Moriarty, but the idea of another man better at math problems than him rankled. She added fuel to the fire. "I will give you a little incentive to this equation. If your puzzle can't be cracked by my man, then I will do that thing with you that you haven't been able to convince me to do before now. If he claims the prize, then you don't lose anything, but you don't gain anything either. So, there’s no down side for you at all."

He was thinking about it. She released her grip around his waist and hoisted herself up onto his desk, putting her boots on the arms of his chair. Dominating, but not threatening. "Of course, if you don't think you're clever enough to pose a problem that can't be solved, well, that would be humiliating, but not in the way you  _like.”_

"Are there any restrictions? Can I use IPS, for example?" She looked puzzled. He sighed. "Geocaching – that's all about using GPS and satellite coordinates to lead your hunters to the treasure. It's...boring. Old hat, low tech, mass market; thousands of people doing it across London on a weekly basis. The really interesting games now are using  _indoor positioning systems._  Satellite technology only gets you so far- it's two dimensional. IPS relies on wifi sites, Bluetooth beacons- and it works indoors. So you can lead people into games that involve things in three dimensions."

"Why is that better?"

He rolled his eyes. "GPS is like satnav; it can take you to an address, but it's no good getting to something like the Shard, but not knowing which of the 72 floors in the tallest building in London your prize is on. IPS gets you there, to the exact spot. Much more fun. Much harder, more complicated, and coding in 3D? Well, if brainy is the new sexy, then think of this as cerebral Viagra."

"Can it be played on a normal phone?"

He smirked. "The answer depends on your phone. If you've got a Broadcom chip, then yes. On your phone, of course, it comes as standard. Especially if you can customise it so it ties in with the other sensors in the phone- the gyroscope, the magnetometer, the accelerometer and the altimeter. If your phone skills are up to it, then the chip keeps track of your GPS entry point, and then counts steps, direction and altitude. That's four variables for coding. The mathematical potential is just….brilliant. "

Irene could see he was now intrigued. It rocks _his_ boat, but would it appeal to Sherlock? "Ok, Professor, now comes the hard part. Let's introduce an extra degree of difficulty. I want you to theme this hunt."

His round face faltered. "Theme? What do you mean,  _theme_?"

"Make the code breaking locations relate to this." She reached down into her backpack on the floor by the desk, and came up with an A4 envelope. "All the details are in there – six unsolved murders, all linked. They happened in London between 1964 and 1965. The person who we are going to be challenging with your puzzle will figure out pretty quickly what the theme is- but that's the flypaper I need to get him to engage with your mathematics."

The academic was scanning through the file contents. There was a USB in there, too. He pulled it out and opened his laptop. Irene laughed. "Oh,  _goody_ , it looks like you've accepted the challenge. When do you think you can have it ready?" She ran one of her slim fingers down the side of his cheek.

He moved away from her touch, already keying in the first strokes to open the computer folder. "Go away, Miss Adler. I will call you tonight with an ETA. Probably by Sunday night. I'm not teaching again until Monday, so will have time to do this." As she slipped off the desk and picked up her back pack, he was already reading the file. "Miss Adler…" She stopped at the door and looked over her shoulder at him. "…I will expect payment as previously discussed."

"Of course, Professor. But only if you win. And, my money is on the other guy being smart enough to break your code and solve your puzzle."

He looked back at her. "What's  _his_  prize, if he wins?"

Irene laughed, "The same as yours, in a way. He will get what  _he_  likes from me."


	18. War Games

Sherlock was bored, but for once, just this once, he was trying not to irritate John about it. The mood in the flat was tense, ever since the doctor discovered that Sherlock had resorted to the codeine and smoking. His disapproval was almost tangible, a physical presence that hung in the air between them.

It annoyed him. Normally, Sherlock was able to delete without detriment anything he didsn't understand about someone else's emotional reaction to his behaviour. It was their problem, not his. But, sharing a flat and now the Work with John made it harder to ignore his behaviour. With Sherlock, an argument one minute was gone the next- ephemeral, and he really didn't understand why people held grudges or kept rehashing old complaints. Oh, of course, he  _knew_  that normal people did- so much of his detective work was based on a fine-tuned sense of judgement about other people's motivations behind their behaviour. So, he could deduce grudges in others.

But, generally speaking, he didn't care enough about other people to bother remembering an argument or disagreement. Only a handful of people occupied precious floor space in the Mind Palace. Apart from Mycroft, who refreshed his irritation every time he saw his brother, Sherlock had few people with whom he kept score. Two for the 'wrong' reason (or at least John would call it 'a bit not good') – were Anderson and Donovan, but that is necessary because of their potential to interfere with his Work. Two for the 'right' reasons- Lestrade and John, because without being able to remember the history of their reactions to his behaviour he wouldn't be able either to get the Work in the first place, or to do it as well as he does. And when it comes to John, his role has now gone beyond just the Work to infiltrate the rest of Sherlock, too- the bits that were not Work-related.

So, he was trying to sit out the mood in the flat. He's learned long ago that silence is the better option; trying to 'talk it over' with people who are irritated by him only ends up getting him into more trouble. He wasn't 'self-aware'- God, how he'd argued with therapists over the years who try to explain the concept to him. He just knew from experience that his brain worked faster than his mouth, and that the disconnect between the two usually ended up badly. So, he retreated back into his Mind Palace and hoped it would all blow over shortly, and things would resume as normal.

John continued with the routine- food arrived from Angelo's and was served up for lunch and dinner; breakfast on the new diet was delivered with the first of the day's cups of tea, coffee and water. But, little was said. Sherlock once told John that he didn't talk sometimes for days, but right now John was returning the favour. Only his silence was judgmental, whereas Sherlock's was usually just because he is thinking about other things. Unfortunately, at the moment, all he could think is that he was bored witless. With no real leads to move forward, and no other criminal case to consider (he'd texted Lestrade three times today without a result), he was having to deal with the anxiety and agitation that comes when he had nothing on which to focus his brain. Even Oxytocin can't stop his brain from starting to consume itself.

The doctor went out. Sherlock was sure he said where, but he couldn’t remember it. At the time of departure, he was working on the laptop, trying to hack into Mycroft's personal e mail – without much success, he had to admit.  _He's keeping something from me, something big; something that he doesn't want me to know._  He should know better; ever since they were children, he'd never been able to keep secret something that Sherlock  _really_  wanted to find out. But GCHQ had installed some sort of firewall that was resisting his attempts today.

"Hoo-hoo." Mrs Hudson was coming up the stairs and then into the room. "Is John going to be out for a while, Sherlock? I do hope so." She's carrying a small padded envelope. "This was delivered this morning to me, inside another bag, with this note." She handed the folded note paper over.

He didn't open it straight away, just felt the paper- very high quality stationary- English made. He raised the note to his nose and caught the faint trace of Dior's Poison perfume.  _How appropriate._  He knew who it is from even before he unfolded it and started to read.

_Dear Mrs Hudson,_

_I hope you won't mind me asking you to do me a favour and get this to Mr Holmes, some time when Doctor Watson is not at home. You see, it's a surprise that I am sure he will want to keep a secret from his flatmate until the right time. So, I shall trust your discretion to choose the appropriate moment to get it to him._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Miss Irene Adler_

The handwriting was neat, attractive- a Mont Blanc pen used with firm decisive strokes. He put his hand out for the packet, and she handed it over. "Is it something for his birthday?"

Sherlock looked puzzled. "Whose birthday?"

"John's, of course. It's at the end of the month. Didn't you know?"

He gave her one of his smiles; John knew the difference, Mrs Hudson did not- she's too trusting a soul. "Thank you, Mrs Hudson. I will take it from here. I need to open this in private."

"Oh." She was obviously disappointed that he isn't going to let her in on the secret. "Well, I suppose I'd better be off then." And she went slowly down the stairs.

As soon as he heard the door shut, he reached for the knife on the mantelpiece and opened the packet. Just before the blade sliced the seal, he momentarily considered whether it might be a letter bomb, but instantly discarded the thought.  _The Woman is not hostile to me; she was expecting me to come after her phone, but didn't seem to pose a threat until I took her phone._  He decided the risk was miniscule.

The black box inside was tied with a blood red silk ribbon. Inside was a Vertu phone. Not the same as Irene's- a different model. This one was a Constellation Quest sapphire blue phone,retailing at £17,000 – a ridiculous price. Sherlock knew all the latest models, brands and prices. He had seriously considered the Vertu, but decided in his line of work, the risks of damaging it irreparably were too high. And the next criminal who took him hostage would just nick it. Not worth the risk.  _Why would Irene Adler be sending me this sort of a phone?_

He turned it on, and realised in a moment that it has been set up already- not completely new, then. There was only one contact in the address book- a number he already had on his other phone, courtesy of the twelve texts he had received from her already.  _If you think I am likely to return a text just because you've given me this phone, you will have to think again, Miss Adler._

He moved onto the photo app- which appeared to have content. Seven entries. The first of them was…of him. Lying on the floor of her bedroom, looking drugged and disorientated. He'd always hated looking at pictures of himself, spent an entire childhood trying to hide from cameras in the hands of family members.  _I really, really don't want to be reminded of this, which is probably the reason why she included it here: a trophy? Not really blackmail material._  He deleted it.

The second photo was …odd. A river? Lake? Maybe the sea- impossible to tell, but a close-up of the hull of a boat of some sort alongside a pontoon. It could be anywhere. Nothing to distinguish location. The next photo was also marine in character- this just the muddy foreshore, up close and, again, impossible to know where. _No shells, no seaweed or plant life- maybe river or estuary?_

The next photo had been taken in close up, of what might be a bit of street, but without a kerb or pavement, and only the side of a grey concrete wall adjoining it, so possibly an alley or parking area. The fifth photo on the phone was taken at a different time of day- the lighting was brighter- not quite sunny. This too was of some road or car park. The wall was different- what looked to be plaster over brick, then a strip of metal roll-down door at the extreme right- the edge of a garage maybe?

The sixth photo was equally obscure- a stretch of tarmacadam with a faded white line, a pile of rubble- mostly broken concrete block, brick and dirt from the look of it- and, strangely, a beat up metal dustbin lid half buried amidst it. The final photo was also an image redolent of urban decay- a corner of a rusting metal building, again set into concrete.

Odd – on the surface there is little to link the photos. He emailed them to himself, so he could load them on his laptop for closer study. He flipped through the rest of the phone's apps which are empty of user generated content, and then looked at the technical specifications. He opened the back: a standard Vertu package, with one notable exception- this one has a Broadcom chip number that he didn’t recognise.

 _John will be back soon._ Sherlock took the note, the box and the packet to his bedroom. He lifted the floor lamp and put it to one side, bent down and pried up the loose floorboard. Inside the box, now back in the packet, he slipped the phone into its new home. Until he'd had a chance to do some research, he didn’t want John to know about it.  _What he doesn't know can't hurt him._


	19. Electronic Countermeasures

If Sherlock was getting impatient for John to go to bed, he was doing a good job of controlling it. Unlike the man who was watching him like a predator waiting for prey to break cover. Jim had been watching on and off for most of the evening, drawing the feed from Mycroft's surveillance camera. No sweep could locate it, as it would only reveal what Mycroft's own people had themselves installed.

"Come on, come on. DO SOMETHING!" Jim shouted at Sherlock, pacing his own impatience, while Sebastian remained stationary and watched the screen.

Moriarty came between him and the TV screen that was displaying the living room of 221b. He glared at the ex-Army man. "How can you just sit there, so fecking calm? I've seen paint drying that was more exciting than this." He resumed his pacing.

Moran considered his point. "A sniper has to be patient. We sometimes have to wait for hours before the target presents a kill shot. Just…part of the process. "

"Right, well you can do the boring bits from now on. I can't stick this out." He marched off into the kitchen, and Moran heard the sound of a fridge door being opened.

The sniper had to admit that the Baker Street observation had tested even his patience. The last three days had been incredibly quiet, with the two flatmates hardly exchanging a handful of words. There seemed to be an atmosphere between the two of them, based on a very brief conversation that had taken place three days before. As soon as Moran heard the first words out of the doctor's mouth, he called Moriarty in to watch.

The doctor confronted Sherlock, waving a bottle of medicine at him. "Sherlock, a doctor knows volumes and dosages. Three doses of 15 ml, one per night. There should be more in here, about 30ml more _._ "

Jim's face lit up. "And who's been a naughty boy then, Sherlock. Looks like you've been indulging yourself."

Seb smirked. "Sounds like a Sergeant Major found something unexpected during a routine inspection."

John was speaking in angry tones: "You took the trouble to move the marker line. Shame you couldn't change my ability to measure dosages."

Sherlock opened his eyes and sat up. Then he stood, took the bottle out of John's hands, and walked towards the kitchen, unscrewing the top as he went. He went off screen, but Jim and Seb could hear the sound of the tap running.

"You should have disposed of it, John."

"I know, Sherlock, but really? Codeine?  _WHY?"_

"There are some things worse than cigarette smoke."

"I know that, too, but that doesn't answer my question- why?"

"Because I need to think. Mycroft is hiding something important. He's broken the terms of our negotiated agreement- we were supposed to  _share_. Something has happened and he won't tell me what it is. That's  _dangerous_  with Moriarty out there. Dangerous to  _you_. Need I remind you of the CIA gun to your head? In the meantime, just when I really need to focus, you've emptied the flat of caffeine, you ration the nicotine patches and won't let me smoke. The alternative to a perfectly reasonable dose of codeine would involve going out to buy cocaine, which for obvious reasons, I think would be …a bit not good. So, just think of it as the lesser of many evils."

"You've got him rattled, boss. That CIA caper is still annoying him. Must like the pet rather more than you thought."

"Never you mind what I thought, tiger. Thinking is not your forte; it's mine. I KNOW that Watson is his weak spot; just hadn't anticipated that Sherlock wasn't the dominant force in this little relationship."

Jim considered it further as he watched the blond man in 221b look away from the tall brunet in frustration. The pet asked Sherlock whether he thought the results were worth it. Sherlock's answer was cool; he needed more data before he could answer the question.

_I'll give you data, my delectable detective. Drown you in it, if I can. I'm letting Irene play with you for a little while, just to see if you succumb to her charms. Anything more overt on my part will result in your Big Brother putting you back out on the side-lines, and I'm having too much fun playing with you to want to rush this._

He picked up his phone and scrolled down the list. Not alphabetical, but in order of importance. Within the top twenty, he selected the number. It went straight to voice mail. He put on his most emollient tone, knowing that the voice modification app would make it suitable threatening. "There you are, my beauty. You really need to get started on Round Two. He's so bored at this point that he's indulging in substance abuse. Go on, be a bad girl and put him out of his misery. Just be sure to keep the pet out of the picture. I want you to drive a teensy leading edge of a thin wedge between the two Baker Street Boys for me."

"And, while you are on the phone, may I remind you that no one is going anywhere with Big Brother until you give up that MOD code. I am getting impatient. Don't make me threaten you again. It's bad for the reputation. I am only willing to wait any longer if you give me some entertainment. See what you can do with the Virgin. Or, call it quits and hand over the Code. The proverbial ball is in your court. Cheery bye now."

Two days and too many hours of watching later, Seb finally spotted something worth seeing. He called Jim, who was out of the flat. Replaying the recording when he got back, the two men saw the landlady appear carrying a package. "Is John going to be out for a while, Sherlock? I do hope so." She's carrying a small padded envelope. "This was delivered this morning to me, inside another bag, with this note." She handed over a folded note paper, which Sherlock first examined and then read.

"Is it something for his birthday?"

Sherlock looks puzzled. "Whose birthday?"

"John's, of course. It's at the end of the month. Didn't you know?"

Jim giggled. "Oh, Sherlock- you are HOPELESS at relationships, aren't you?"

Seb growled, "I can think of something I'd like to give him as a birthday present."

"Control yourself, my tiger. Taking out your frustrations on a fellow soldier is just…not on. Not yet, anyway. I'm still not convinced that Sherlock wouldn't dump the little doctor if a better offer came along, so keeping them pissed off at each other is just the ticket. Seems like Irene has been pushing a few of the doctor's jealousy buttons."

When Sherlock shoos the landlady out, the watchers are treated to the scene of Sherlock opening the padded envelope, then the beribboned box, and extracting the sapphire blue Vertu phone.

"Oh, EXCELLENT choice, Irenee- that phone just SO matches the colour of his eyes!"

Seb cast a glance over at the consulting criminal who was glued to the screen. His worried frown stayed with him, as the younger man's dark eyes watched the tall brunet explore the phone a bit, with a furrowed brow of concentration. But after less than ten minutes, the object of his fascination switched the phone off, put it back in the box, then into the envelope and left the room.

"Well." Jim's face had one of his exaggerated frowns on it. "That just wasn't enough; feel like I've been watching a strip tease, only to have the star of the show walk off stage with his knickers still on." He left Seb watching and went out again. "Text me if anything riveting happens."

oOo

Later that night, when John had gone to bed, Sherlock went into his bedroom and opened his laptop. The email was in his inbox, with the photos attached. He started work.

A simple Google Images search and then using the IDthis app produced nothing that matched, which he expected.  _Too easy, and unworthy of her._ He then used one of his software packages to study the photos more carefully, using the zoom functions to take a closer look at some of the more unusual features.

The two water photos were most intriguing. Examining the patterns in the mud on the foreshore photo suggested it was tidal- so either a river influenced by tides or a coastal area. The absence of seaweed and other oceanic debris suggested the former rather than the latter. The boat hull by the pontoon also pushed his deductions in that direction- no barnacles or sea algae were visible just below the water line. Ten minutes of internet research into pontoon shapes suggested this was not a posh yacht marina- and the materials appeared old. A shadow cast on the water surface suggested a walkway, so a boat mooring area. The line of the boat hull relative to the water was at an angle not used in most sailing craft- so possibly a motor cruiser. He tried researching the colour and shape, but without the full dimensions and more detail than were in the photo, he wasn't going to be able to deduce the actual craft.

The trouble with tidal rivers navigable by pleasure cruisers was that there were too many of them in the UK, and there was no guarantee that they were actually in the UK.

That pushed his research in a different direction. A closer look at the technical specifications of the original photographs intrigued him. He was looking for a date or at least a rough idea of when they might have been taken. The photos were black and white, which suggested age, but digitisation data revealed that the photos were recent- yet there was a mismatch between the pixel range and the quality of the image that confused him, until he realised that what he was looking at was a photo taken by a camera phone of another photo- and one taken by a much higher resolution camera.  _Odd- is this a way to disguise their origin?_

The Vertu would have an EXIF function, which would geotag the location of the photo with GPS, and include a date/time stamp. He used the Firefox browser technique to get the data off the images- all taken within a ten minute period only two days ago- so, yes, that confirmed that the phone had taken pictures of other photos; there was no way that the third and fourth photo could have been taken at the same time of day. ( _I do remember, John, really important things about the sun- such as angles of lighting relative to time of day, but it's still irrelevant to know whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa.)_

The GPS location was …interesting. The geotag on each of the six photos was identical:- 0.22455, 51.49i994. Translated into GPS coordinates, this was -0°13'28"E, 51°29'31"N. So, London. West London to be more accurate, Hammersmith to be precise. Was the location where the camera photos were taken of the original photographs significant? Perhaps. He needed more data.

That got him off the bed and on his knees, beside the standing lamp. He fished out the padded envelope and removed the box and the note. He used his magnifier to examine the paper, the watermark was instantly recognisable: Crown Mill, 100 GSm, replicating the paper produced in the Royal paper mills of 17th century Belgium. He stored that fact in his Mind Palace. He could check suppliers. The black box was also subjected to forensic scrutiny. He fished in his chest of drawers for a soft cloth roll, and pulled a scalpel from the tools in the roll. Carefully prising up the black paper that covered the cardboard box, he was rewarded with another manufacturer's mark.

A quick internet search for suppliers of the box was followed by a search for retailers who sold both the box and the stationery. Several turned up, so he took a look at their websites, wondering whether there was a link. He tested one theory- and was rewarded when the chain Scribbler turned out to have a store in Hammersmith. At the Broadway Shopping Centre, built directly over the Hammersmith tube station.  _Not a coincidence, then that the photos are geotagged at those coordinates._  He smiled. He was enjoying this.

But, what was the connection between the content of the photos? Was there any link between that and where the photos were taken and boxed up? Hammersmith was near a tidal river- the Thames. Unfortunately, Google Street view didn't include a "river view", so he couldn't use it to spot marinas, moorings or other places where that pontoon might be. That would need a boat trip.

The other four images were of urban scenes- not normal streets, however. The absence of kerbs, pavements and normal road markings like side white lines were a bit of a clue. Again, lighting in the photos differed, suggesting different times of the day. The tarmacadam looked different in all four shots.  _Unlikely to be on the same immediate vicinity then._  But, there was a sense of urban decay, or at least run-down conditions. The metal roll down door was chipped and the rusty, the paint peeling in places. The corrugated metal building was equally dented and neglected. But apart from the one photo that had the rubble in it, none of the other three looked as if the area photographed was abandoned. There were no weeds growing, nor was the surface of the road cracked or damaged from neglect.  _So not likely to be an abandoned warehouse_. But it did have the feel of an industrial estate- or perhaps several different estates?

The one photo with the rubble stood out from the others. The rubble, broken bricks and dirt just looked …wrong somehow. The metal dustbin lid was dented – but still looked surprisingly shiny and new. He considered the image carefully. There was something not quite right; builders' rubbish or a fly-tipper's debris generally looked more coherent- unless it was brand new, the effects of weathering would soften edges and blend the elements into a single heap. There was something about the bin lid, too, that was just not working. It looked…staged.  _Why would a pile of rubble with a dust bin lid half buried be staged?_

That the photos related to places, and that they were in some way linked was clear. The possible connection was Hammersmith, but that would need exploring on foot- and on the river nearby, too. The reason for a Broadcom chip being installed now became apparent. Scrolling through the company's website revealed that the BCM4752 chip in the phone meant that it would be able to receive and calculate position, velocity and time. PVT calculations were key to IPS.  _Oh, this is getting deliciously complicated- and is going to involve some interesting legwork. What is your game, Miss Adler, and why are you leading me to it?_ One thing he did know. He was going to have to keep this secret from both John and Mycroft. Neither would be happy with him, but that didn't matter. Not anymore.


	20. Spy in the Sky

 

After breakfast, John left for the clinic- his first full day shift in some time.  _One down._ Just to make sure that his brother was put off the scent, Sherlock waited until Mrs Hudson came upstairs.

"Thank you, Mrs Hudson for the reminder about John's birthday. I'm off to do some gift shopping. I may be some time, because I think it's going to be hard to find exactly what I am looking for."

She smiled, probably pleased that her comment was leading Sherlock to do something so nice for his flatmate.  _Classic example of misdirection._  His brother might be suspicious about his motives for shopping, but at least it was a plausible excuse for getting out of the flat and onto the puzzle. He'd be watched by a surveillance team, but they wouldn't know why he was doing what he was planning to do.  _That's another observer safely squared away._  He left his phone on, however; if Lestrade called with an interesting case, then it would trump Irene's puzzle.  _The Work always takes priority_.

Sherlock's taxi deposited him at the corner of Queen Caroline Street and Hammersmith Broadway, across from the Broadway Shopping Centre. His first port of call was the Scribbler shop. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he decided that he wanted Irene Adler to be aware that he had traced the origins of her note and the box in which the gift phone had been sent to him. So, he turned the Sapphire Vertu on, and made sure that the GPS was live. He assumed the phone would be bugged, tracking calls and his physical movements, so he had installed an app this morning which would warp the GPS tracking to conceal his presence. But, he didn't turn that one on, not yet- right now, he wanted Irene to know that he had accepted her challenge and was in pursuit.

He entered the mall, and kept his eyes firmly down on the pavement. He disliked intensely this sort of shopping precinct- too brightly lit, with too much going on in terms of background noise, colours, people- the sights and sounds, not to mention the scents, were overwhelming. The sheer amount of data bursting in made him feel nauseated. With over 40 retail shops crammed into such a tight place, it was his idea of hell. A quick squint at the mall directory showed that his target was on the next floor up, and where the central escalators were. He tried to keep some distance between him and the other shoppers, but it was hard. As he walked past the Shirtstream Drycleaners, the Supercuts Hairdressers and then a Costa Coffee Shop, his nose had to deal with the clash of aliphatic hydrocarbons in the dry-cleaning fluids with the ammonia-based hair colourant, spiced with the robust aroma of roasting coffee beans. The combination made Sherlock want to gag. Then he ended up on the escalator standing behind a builder who clearly had a body odour issue ( _wife left him three weeks ago, and he hasn't told his own mother yet, because he's ashamed to admit that he has no idea how to turn the washing machine on; ran out of deodorant four days ago, but has been too busy to do any shopping, because he's drinking with his buddies for consolation)_. He closed his eyes and tried not to breathe too deeply.

oOo

The Professor smiled. "Our lab rat has entered the maze. Let's see how long it takes him to figure out where to go." The Wifi hot spots and Bluetooth nodes activated on screen and traced a direct route to the second floor of the mall where the second clue had been placed. The Professor grunted. "He's quick off the mark, I will grant, but he's going to have to think about it once he gets in the shop."

Irene was fascinated by the mathematician's three dimensional model of the shopping centre, with the various IPS beacons identified. He was dismissive- "Something I got my graduate students to whip up for me- IPS is the new GPS, and the mathematical modelling involved in tracking movement vertically, together with velocity adds another dimension of complexity. Just the sort of thing to keep them occupied in a seminar while I work on my own research."

"Let's tease our boy a bit; tell him we are watching." She keyed in a text message on her phone and sent it.

oOo

Inundated by the sensory impact of his trip through the mall, when Sherlock reached the Scribbler shop he almost bolted through the door. Fortunately, the store was almost empty of shoppers, the lighting was more subtle than the mall corridors, and the scents more restrained. He looked around, spotting the writing paper selection and then the paper that Irene had used to write her note to Mrs Hudson.

The trouble was, he had no idea whether this was supposed to be the first stop of a sort of trail- or whether his deductions were just leading him astray. He checked the phone. No text.

Then he checked for a local Wifi or Bluetooth link- if the IPS was going to be used, then that's how they would trace him. He found the shop's Wifi was active- but password protected. Fortunately, he was next door to the Trout Pub, which advertised free Wifi, so if someone was tracking his progress, they'd be able to pick him up.

He wandered the aisles of the small shop, looking at the cards, trying to decide what would suit John – humour? He pulled a card out to read the message in the inside, but grimaced at the sentiment. No, maybe humour isn't a good idea. He had no idea how sensitive John might be about how old he was. For some, poking fun at advancing years could be misunderstood. There was etiquette here that he just didn't understand, which was part of the reason he'd not been one to send cards to anyone in the past. It was all a little confusing.

The phone in Sherlock's pocket pinged quietly.  _Saved by the bell._ New text message from contact. Since Irene was the only one in the address book, he smirked as he opened it.

**11.12am Bullseye. But, do you know what to look for?**

Yes, well that was the challenge, wasn't it? He let his eyes wander. They came to rest on the display of gift boxes. His smirk broadened. The display had been artfully arranged to show different sizes and shapes, with suitable gift items in each. One box- black like the one used for the phone- held a bottle of perfume: Calvin Klein's Obsession.  _How appropriate_. He picked the bottle up and examined it. On the bottom was a small square glued on it- to the casual observer, it looked like part of the labelling. But Sherlock recognised the QR code as being just what he was looking for. He downloaded onto the phone a QR scanner app- Red Laser would do the trick. Three minutes later, he was ready to scan the QR Code. It could lead him to a website, or an SMS message or even a telephone.

The Professor moved his pudgy hand over the mouse and called up another software icon on the second screen on his desk. This one traced the URL addresses being accessed through the new link.

"Bingo," Irene could not contain her smile. "He's just downloaded an app to read the QR code. Looks like he was on the right track straight away."

"Maybe." The rotund academic sniffed. With a slightly superior tone, he remarked "Now we'll see just how good this chap of yours is. The code is not an easy one."

At this precise moment, Sherlock was looking at his phone in some puzzlement. The QR scan had produced just an alphanumeric string- sixteen characters long: L2A93R0T1W6E84F7

Irene purred into the academic's ear. "How long would it take you to crack that code?"

"Well, I can't judge that, can I? I set the code, so it's not fair."

"How long would it take Moriarty?"

He looked alarmed. "We aren't talking about that man, not in here. You promised." His face flushed, and he loosened the collar of his shirt.

She smiled. "Alright, I won't mention that name again. How long would it take the cleverest person you know, who isn't you or that…other person you don't like me to mention?"

"Hours, if not days. There are over two trillion possible combinations, assuming that none of the 16 characters are repeated. Even with a computer to generate all the permutations, you'd still have to read them. And even then, because of your insistence that we use a theme, it would take a person to know what the initials meant before he could select the right one."

He gave her a wicked grin that sat oddly in his round face. "I told you I would make this hard. I  _really_  want you to do that thing you've so far refused to do with me. So I hope you are prepared to admit defeat."

There was a ping from the computer behind them. They both turned to watch the virtual progress of their target, out the door of the Scribblers shop, down the mall escalator. The Bluetooth beacon at the Carphone Warehouse shop flared- but the location was calculated as being at the WHSmith next door where it stayed for about a minute, then the phone turned up on the free WiFi service at the Starbucks on the other side of the mall.

The professor frowned. "Is he doing some shopping and then going for a coffee?" He sounded incredulous. "I thought you said he would be hooked into this game?"

She thought for a moment and then remembered the scent of his coat. "I will bet that he has just bought some cigarettes and is now indulging in a bit of brain stimulation- probably an espresso. If your puzzle is any good, then any moment now, he should try to download a number crunching calculator to get started."

oOo

In fact, Sherlock took his two double espressos, poured them into a single cup and sat down at one of the chairs outside the Starbucks Coffee shop. Strictly speaking, he knew he shouldn't smoke indoors; even outside the shop, he was still inside the mall, which was a public place after all, but there were several others out there doing the same. He lit up, pulled in four deep drags on the cigarette in rapid succession and then pulled out a pen. Turning over the paper placemat on the little table, he started to scribble possible permutations of the 16 characters. Numbers were less useful than letters- too many possible combinations. Letters were key, important clues. They gave context. He started with the letters of the alphabet. Within a minute, he had discarded the notion that the letters spelled a particular word.  _More likely to be abbreviations, and possible more than one is involved._

He wondered if the code would involve a cipher- like the Chinese numbering code used by the Black Lotus Gang. That would make life difficult, and he'd have to figure out what Irene would be using as a codebook. He then discarded that idea- he thought she was more the type to look for instant gratification.  _She's watching me, so something that would take hours or even days to figure out would not be as entertaining._ So, he'd treat the letters and numbers at face value.

Seven minutes later, he sat back and looked hard at the scribbles. There was something that was nagging at him. Why and which one was it? He engaged his Mind Palace in one of the more unusual modes- he could just set it in background scanning mode, visualise each set of initials and then let the connection be drawn, subconsciously. Thinking too hard about it could make the tenuous link disappear.

 _OH,_ RAL! It was the set of initials for the European standard for colours of paints. Printers used Pantone colours for inks. Paint used RAL colours. He called up the internet.

The Woman smirked. "Professor, he's just figured the first part out- he's called up the right website and is now looking through the listings."

The rotund man sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and huffed. "Are you sure you didn't leave him some sort of clue?"

"Of course not; I want him to have to  _work_  at this. Think of it as a viva exam. It's not in my interest to help him, if I want to prove to myself that he can break that code of mine- the one that you  _couldn't_  break."

The man leaned back in his chair. "Well, then he's just got lucky with the letters. There are hundreds of different RAL numbers. He will have to crack the number code to figure that out. And there will still be the extra letters and numbers that won't fit. It will still take time, and he's got four more clues to go, each one harder than the previous one."

Three minutes later, her Vertu gave an orgasmic sigh. She picked it up to see New Text Message on the screen. She started to laugh. "Oh my, Mr Holmes, who is just the cleverest boy in town?!"

She showed the professor the message:

**11:29am What kind of a clue is automotive spray paint? Traffic White RAL9016 to be precise? SH**

The professor was apoplectic. "How the hell did he do that? It's not possible. To crack that one so fast, he had to identify the logarithmic shifts needed to get the numbers to align correctly."

She just laughed out loud. "You mathematicians are all alike- you think numbers are the key. The letters obviously gave him the first step, and then all he had to do was look at the list of RAL numbers and deduce from there. He didn't need to do any complex mathematical code shifting, just make sense of the data that you gave him. The extra letters and numbers are catalogue codes for car paints. Maybe that's something he already knows about from his forensic studies."

The man pushed his chair away from the desk in outrage. He stood up and stomped over to the window as if trying to hold onto his temper. His face bright red, he turned back to her and raised his hands, shouting "That's just…not fair!" His double chin quivered with rage. "That's  _cheating!"_

The computer behind Irene pinged again. They turned to it. "He's on the move again." They watched as Sherlock's progress was tracked back through the mall and out the door onto Talgarth Road. GPS kicked in and the map changed to a Google traffic map. Their target crossed the street at the corner walked in a southwest direction, down Queen Caroline Street toward the river. Irene breathed out, "Could he have already figured this out? Without the other clues? He's not doing what you said he would, Professor. That code you set up around the grafitti display with the spray paint can and the woman's panties in the lingerie shop window- he's ignoring that."

As Sherlock strode down the street, he kept his eyes down on the pavement. He was thinking hard, still half in his Mind Palace. It was slightly dangerous, as he had a tendency to stop paying attention to his surroundings. He'd once been hit by a bike courier because he stepped out from the pavement without looking. But, this puzzle was…intriguing.  _What links six different photos taken in West London, two of which are on the river and the rest in run down industrial zones, with a particular colour of car spray paint?_

When he got to Lower Mall, he picked up the riverside walk, following the Thames upstream. Going under the Hammersmith Bridge, he tried to block out the sound of the traffic thundering overhead. As Lower Mall continued as a footpath, the sound of cars retreated. Looking down at the river, he realised he was on that stretch of the Thames that was home to London's rowing clubs. He walked past the British Rowing boathouse, then the Furnival Boat House and then the footpath took a sharp right turn away from the river. Before he followed it, he looked to his left and then started smiling. There was a pier of some 25 metres in length jutting out into the river. He stood at the chain link fence and considered the locked gate. At the far end of the pier, moored almost a third of the way across the river were ten houseboats. Unlike a lot of those tucked in closer to the shore which he had already passed, these were more like barges than the narrow canal boats. So, a deeper draft to the hulls, needing deeper water. He backed up along the path until he was in the right position. If he had a telescopic lens, he would have been able to take the photo of the boat and the pontoon.  _One down- what is it about this particular place that makes it special? And what links it to the others?_

He decided to press on the path, continuing upstream to where it joined the road of Upper Mall. He carried on past Kemscott House, and reached the Son of the Thames Rowing Club. At each point, he looked over to see their point of river entry- eights and sculls needed to be launched, so there were paths leading down from the boat houses to concrete wharves. But none projected very far into the river- that would interfere with the rowing. Even at low tide, the amount of foreshore exposed would not match the second photo. He carried on walking upstream.

It was when he passed the Sons of the Thames boathouse that his eye spotted a sign which made him stop. Pointing inland, it said London Corinthian Sailing Club. The fingerpost also had a sign pointing further upstream to the Old Ship Pub. He stopped. Something about the conjunction of those two names rang a very, very faint bell.  _What is the connection between the two? And why do I think there is a link to the other five locations, where there is something that involves car spray paint?_ He decided to sit down on a bench facing the river and watched a coxless pair beating up river, against the outgoing tide. Time for a determined visit to the Mind Palace. 


	21. Clandestine Operations

 

The GPS had been static on the riverside location for a good ten minutes. Then it moved- to the east along the river embankment quickly, so Holmes was probably in a taxi. The Professor's smugness starting to irritate Irene.

"He hasn't realised that the other clues are back at the shopping centre. And…he looked at the right place by the river for ..what was it? All of four minutes before walking away? Didn't even take a photo or register the GPS location. So, I think the odds are in my favour, Ms Adler."

She was pacing in his book-strewn office. There was a soft knock at the door.

"Enter!"

A young nerdy looking woman poked her head tentatively around the opening door, looking a little nervous. "Professor, is it alright to come in and start our tutorial?" She looked anxiously at the older woman in the room. Irene was exuding irritation at the interruption.

"Yes, of course. This 'student' is just leaving." When she snapped her head around to glare at the academic, he just giggled. "Well, you didn't really think that problem could be solved in a single afternoon, did you? I took the precaution of booking some tutorials in, knowing that the solution wasn't just going to pop out of thin air. Telephone me tomorrow, and I will update you if any progress that has been made."

She picked up her phone, her handbag and briefcase and strode from the room. Just as she got to the door, she couldn't resist saying, "I think the solution is going to be a lot more…exciting than you think, Professor."

As Irene left the mathematics faculty building, another orgasmic sigh emerged from her phone.

**13.49 What's the prize for figuring this out? Incentivise me… SH**

**13.50 Isn't the thrill of the chase enough?**

**13.51 You need to be risking something; I am by keeping this from JW as asked. SH**

**13.52 Dinner?**

**13.53 Not interested. That invitation has been ignored on numerous occasions. SH**

**13.54 A chance to keep the phone?**

**13.55 Possession is nine-tenths of the law. SH**

**13.57 What would you _LIKE_?**

**13.57 For you to tell me why the CIA was after your phone. SH**

**14.00 Done- but only if you win.**

There was no immediate reply, which she took for an agreement. At least the texts meant he had not abandoned the puzzle. Time would tell.

She went back to Chelsea and, after some detours and back tracking, made it to the front door of her bolt hole without picking up an obvious tail. Kate was also out, but Irene gathered her professional clothing and her equipment, packed it all neatly into a case and headed back out. Again, she chose a route away from the flat that would deceive most observers. She was heading for St Pancras hotel, where she had a rendezvous with a client at 6pm. He was coming in from Paris on the Eurostar and he had booked a suite in her name.  _French style, it has its perks._

She had just checked in when her phone vibrated. She took a look while she was in the lift to the sixth floor.

**4.12 Solved it. Will swap proof for your side of the bargain- face-to-face. Where? SH**

Irene thought about it. Even if he had succeeded, she didn't want to meet him in the suite. If the conversation went too long, there would be a risk of the client gate-crashing, and that would be embarrassing. Besides, it might just be a trick- to get her alone and then somehow try to steal the phone. It had to be a public place.

**4.14 Meet 5.15 at the Gilbert Scott Bar**

She phoned the Professor, hoping that he would provide her with evidence of whether Sherlock was lying or telling the truth, but there was no reply. She showered, changed her clothes, applied her make up and put her hair up. Once again, the Woman emerged from behind the student camouflage. Just as she slipped on the Louboutins, her phone vibrated on the dressing table. She checked caller ID, and sighed.  _Not now…_

But she answered it anyway.

"Ireenee." That horrible gangster style voice grated on her nerves.

"What can I do for you? This needs to be quick as I am a little pressed for time here."

"I'd like to  _impress_  upon  _you_  the need for a little more progress, my dear. I've been watching your little game with our mutual friend. Surprised you, didn't he? Just a little faster than that fat slob who fancies his mathematical skills. The Professor's a buffoon. Probably not in your class; certainly not in mine or the Baker Street Boy's."

She had to agree, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of saying so. "Really, I have to go now. Unless you have something urgent, I suggest we defer this conversation."

"Tut, tut- it really doesn't pay to be sharp with me, Ms Whiplash. I'm just calling to remind you that I intend collecting soon on that Code you owe me, with or without your cooperation. Just so you know. Wouldn't want there to be any misunderstanding, now would we?"

"Goodbye" She ended the call, knowing it would irritate him. The pleasure of that dissipated too quickly. She was getting anxious herself; she needed Sherlock to break that code, and quickly, or she was going to get caught between Moriarty's need to use it to attack Mycroft Holmes, and her plan to have his brother break the code and then use that fact to get the ultimate protection herself from the elder Holmes. She felt like she was in a competitive arms race- who could get the Code first and use it to blackmail the man in the three piece suit? The original arrangement she had made with the Irishman was feeling more tenuous every day.

As she crossed the lobby, she was still fretting over the call, so she stopped for a moment, collected her thoughts, adjusted her walk and then languidly strolled into the Gilbert Scott's long room. Framed by the gothic windows and the red walls, the room was stylish if a little Victorian for her taste. There at the bar sat a lean and hungry looking consulting detective. He looked effortlessly well dressed, but casual, in his close fitting suit, and open necked sapphire blue shirt. A glass of what appeared to be sparkling water was in front of him.

"Oh dear. I thought you'd be celebrating with a glass of champagne. Or was it all talk and no proof- just spinning a line for the opportunity to meet up?" She slid onto the bar stool beside him.

He didn't look at her, but instead gestured to the bartender who delivered a freshly poured flute of Moet & Chandon Rosé champagne, obviously pre-ordered.

He raised his glass and looked at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, while she looked straight at him. "Cheers. Here's to the six Nude Murder Victims."

She smiled. "Was it so terribly easy then? What tipped you off?"

He smirked, as he put the glass of water down. "What, other than the fact that it was an obvious combination of your 'obsession' and mine? What other six unsolved serial murders – my Work- involved yours - sex and nudity?"

Then his smile faded. "They were what I believe is called in the business 'working girls'. Hannah Tailford, Helen Barthelemy, Margaret McGowan, Bridie O'Hara. And Mary Foster, on whom the spray paint spatter was found. And then there was the second victim- your namesake- Irene Lockwood. Not surprising that the murders would attract your attention, even if they were committed in '64 and '65."

She smiled. "It annoys you, doesn't it? That no suspect was ever arrested?"

"Of course. Mind you, it was before DNA and forensics had evolved to their current levels. Doubtful now that someone would get away with it."

"No, after all, the Yard now has  _you_  as their secret weapon." It wasn't delivered in a snide tone; it sounded sincere, if a little flirtatious.

That made him actually look at her for the first time, with full eye contact. This time, he could read the fact that she was under stress.  _Wonder why. Not this puzzle. She enjoyed that. There is something else that she's not telling me._ Not for the first time, he wondered if she was regretting what his brother had identified as some form of collaboration with Moriarty.

"Are you ready to deliver your side of the bargain, Miss Adler?"

She pouted. "All work and no play makes you a dullard, Mr Holmes. I did ask for proof."

He rolled his eyes, pulled the blue phone out of his pocket and punched a couple of keys. The photo app opened, and the first image appeared- now bearing a caption with the murdered woman's name and the GPS co-ordinates of the crime scene where her body had been found, floating under the pontoon bridge at Hammersmith, with a pair of lace panties stuffed in her mouth. She flicked through the other five, confirming that they were all there.

"I am surprised not to have had a call from …an associate of mine, who was supposed to be following you to these sites and keeping an eye on your GPS data. How did you manage to fool him?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Because I will need to  _chastise_  him for his failure."

He touched the keys again, opening the app bar- and showed her the jamming device. "It doesn't block the signal, just warps it. Your associate will have tracked me all through the East End over the past few hours."

"Clever. I might find that app useful."

"You can have the phone and the app. I have no need of either." He slid the Vertu across the bar to her.

She looked at him with curiosity. "You can keep it, you know. To the victor goes the spoils."

He shook his head. "It's rather too flash for me. Attracts too much attention. I move in rather dangerous circles; suspects can get rather greedy, so there is no point in exciting their acquisitive instincts."

She nodded, and the tilted her head to look at him speculatively. "So, why do  _you_  think the CIA is after my phone?"

"That's what you are supposed to be telling me."

She glanced at the clock over the bar. 5.30pm. As much as she was enjoying this little exchange, she needed to bring it to a close soon, or her client would complain. She pulled her own phone out and pulled up the photo function. "I can show you two photos." The first image was of the man Sherlock recognised as the CIA operative who had the large silencer on his gun- apparently the leader of the team.

"His name is Nielson. Minor officer in the Grosvenor Square embassy, but actually a covert CIA plant for dirty work. Don't know his first name. He isn't one of  _mine_."

The second photo was a bit grainy and taken from some distance. Nielson was talking to another man. Blond, taller, but with the same military set of his shoulders. In half profile, his facial features weren't very clear. It didn't matter.

Sherlock had gone very still. Then he spoke, "His name is Sebastian Moran."

"OH, so you recognise him?"

"Yes." It was said tersely. Sherlock remembered the beating he had received from Moran, when the sniper kidnapped him, drugged him and held him until a deadline for meeting Moriarty had passed. The incident had sent Sherlock into a rehab clinic for almost six weeks.

"I suspect that this CIA man is one of Moriarty's dark angels. Someone who both gives protection and does him the occasional favour."

"Tell me about 'dark angels'."

She took a long sip of her champagne, then nodded. "I don't see why not. I'm not betraying any confidences here. Moriarty has a network of legitimate people- useful contacts, politicians, judges, police men, business tycoons- all of whom 'owe' him something. One of his so-called consultants, Charles Milverton, specialises in blackmail and helps him build his network here in the UK. He calls on these people to help out when either he or one of his criminal clients need a favour. If we were talking spies, think of 'sleepers'- respectable people in the right places, with the right connections to do him a favour."

The tall brunet drank some of his water, and kept his eyes on the glass when he set it back down on the bar. The bubbles rising were so different from those in Irene's champagne glass. His mind went off on a tangent. ( _carbonation, the expression of carbon dioxide gas under pressure in liquids of different chemical composition and the impact of the alcohol molecule on the process of bubble formation_ )

"This Nielson is a legitimate CIA operative then, but doing Moriarty's bidding. Why did you take his picture?"

"To try to build in some protection of my own, against Moriarty, should he prove  _awkward_  at some point."

"Supping with the devil, Miss Adler, is always dangerous, by definition. Why are you doing business with him at all? Are you providing him or Milverton with blackmail material on potential dark angels?"

He could see in the mirror that she was eyeing him with an appraising look. She shook her head, as if to herself. "No, I don't do that. My photos are my protection. I'm not a blackmailer. I thought you realised that about HRH, when we last met in Belgravia."

"You don't need Moriarty for that."

"No, but in the process, I inadvertently collected something he wants very much. I don't want to hand it over, but he is willing to apply pressure on me in the hope of recovering it. I thought it might prove useful, but I'm beginning to realise that it is a double-edged sword."

"So, Miss Adler, were you Nielson's target, or was I?"

She met his gaze. "I think we both were."

As she let that reply sink in, she continued. "I am going to need to talk to you again, Mr Holmes. We have some interests in common that are worth exploring. The old saying might apply- the enemy of my enemy is my friend." She smiled. "I think we might be friends, Mr Holmes. Or at least fellow travellers, if your address book doesn't allow for friends. But, unfortunately, tonight is not your lucky night, nor mine. Duty calls, and I mustn't be late. So, consider this a rain check. We will meet again."

She finished the glass of champagne and collected the two phones from the bar, returning them to her bag. Then she stood and strode out, her Louboutin heels flashing their red soles as she walked away. Sherlock didn't notice because he was paying the bill to the barman. But, someone else did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: The Six Nude Murders actually occurred between 1964 and 1965, and are one of London's great unsolved serial killing sprees. The names, crime scene locations and details as described above are all historically accurate.


	22. Humint

Sir Thomas Weston leaned back in the leather-clad booth, straightening the creases in his hand tailored waistcoat. The neat grey haired man wore his age as a mark of privilege, along with his public school and Oxford education- the discrete uniform of the UK's most senior civil servants. His choice of seating had turned out to be fortuitous. He originally chose this booth, the farthest from the bar door and the one in the deepest shadows, to ensure privacy. Before the Eurostar train to Brussels at 6.33pm, he was meeting a man that he would prefer others did not know about. It was not the done thing for the UK's Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office to be seen consorting with a known blackmailer. Fortunately for him, only a  _very_  select number of people knew that Sir Charles Augustus Milverton was a blackmailer, and most of those wouldn't talk for fear of exposure.

While he waited, he let his eye drift over the other customers in the bar. The Gilbert Scott bar was a key feature of the newly refurbished St Pancras Hotel- an explosion of Victorian Gothic exuberance now restored to its former glory but updated with all modern conveniences. The bar was once the main lobby entrance for the old hotel, built in the 19th century to house the great and the good who were on their way by rail to and from Birmingham or Manchester- the twin hubs of the industrial revolution- and London, the centre of the British Empire's money needed to fund the factories.  _Ever thus_.

The bar was busy with early evening commuters, train passengers to and from the continent, and the odd customer like him who wanted the bar's unique combination of privacy and accessibility. The room also had a melange of Eurostar passengers from France and the EU beyond, who could afford the luxury of time and money needed for rail travel in a world of airports. Too many financiers were occupying the booths, talking money over cocktails that said more about their wealth than their taste.

His attention was drawn to a young man who entered the room and made his way to the bar _. Late twenties, early thirties?_  He put a Belstaff coat down on the stool next to him, reserving it for a companion who had yet to arrive. Weston was appraising the young man's figure- the suit fitting his slim form accentuated his height- made-to-measure, probably Jermyn Street. Its quality whispered class compared to the sharp City suits in the room that screamed luxury brand names. The longish unruly hair also set him apart from the banker boys; their short sharp cuts made them look feral and money grubbing to his practiced eye. Instinctively, he recognised the newcomer as a fellow Oxbridge product, and the lack of self-consciousness spoke of old money, family, entitlement.  _It takes one to know one._  The civil service had become the profession of choice for those who wanted to perpetuate the class distinctions born well before the bar they were now in had been originally built.

As the younger man turned to catch the barman's eye, Sir Thomas got his first clear look at the high cheekbones, the glacial blue eyes, and, with a start, realised that he recognised the man- the younger brother of Mycroft Holmes.  _Oh, that could prove inconvenient!_  He wasn't sure the young man would recognise him, but he certainly didn't want to risk it. He fished in his pocket for his phone.

The voice on the other end of the phone answering "'ello?" had a slightly disagreeable East End accent. He could swear that Milverton put on an even stronger Cockney accent just to annoy him.  _The BBC's Eastenders soap opera has a lot to answer for when it came to spoken English._

"Hello, Sir Charles. We have a slight hiccup. Someone has just arrived in the bar that I would prefer not to see us together. Shall we agree a different venue?"

"Tommy, my man, you know better; call me Gus. So, 'ave you got another suggestion of a watering 'ole? 'Ang on a minute, before we get to that; who's the bloke that's putting the wind up you? "

"His name is Sherlock Holmes, and by the look of it, he is here to meet someone."

"Oh, the kid brother of ol' three piece suite! Right you are, Sir," echoing the phrase of a servant answering the order of a superior. Milverton loved playing the class card against Sir Thomas, rubbing his aristocratic nose in the fact that he was now being forced to deal with the bespectacled man, an East End garage chain owner awarded a knighthood in deference to his contributions to party funds- in short, someone he would normally have despised and avoided like the plague.

The object of Sir Thomas's disaffection carried on talking, "I will loi'er with intent out here in the hotel lobby until you can tell me who he's meeting. Might be useful to pass on that little nugget to someone who shall remain nameless. Actually, Tommy, any chance of overhearing the conversation?"

The Permanent Secretary bristled. "Hardly, I would rather not get close enough for him to recognise me, and that rather precludes being within earshot. Wait a moment, I think his date has just arrived."

"Come on then- give us a gander. Hold the phone up so I take a look-see."

Sir Thomas did so discretely, making sure that the phone's video function wouldn't use a flash. He then sent it to the man he so detested. At this distance and in the relatively subdued lighting, he doubted that the man would be able to see all that much. Still, it showed willing, and at the moment, he was rather duty bound to do just that.

His phone vibrated, and he answered to hear the sound of a wolf-whistle. "Well, can't say that The Woman is my taste, but I wouldn't put it past you posh school boys to like a whipping now and then."

The Permanent Secretary frowned. "You're talking drivel. What on earth do you mean?"

"That is The Woman- goes by the twitter handle, the WhipHand. She's a dominatrix. Got half the Cabinet and a third of the Times 100 businessmen in her little black book. Now, Tommy, my man, you have GOT to get an ear on their conversation."

The civil servant set his lips primly. "No, I'm not someone who listens at keyholes; I'm not a voyeur. And there is no way to get near him without him recognising me. He might be harmless, but his brother is not."

"Oi-just be criminally creative for once in your silver-spooned life! Bribe a waiter to put his phone on record under the bar where they are sitting. Then get him to e mail me the MP3 file. Easy-peasy. You can spare your blushes that way- don't even have to listen in."

Sir Thomas sighed. The list of "little favours" being extorted in return for keeping quiet about his one and only ever indiscretion on the seafront of Cannes was growing longer by the minute. He replied sharply, "alright. Just leave it with me. But, you are not to cross the threshold into this room, do you understand? I don't want to face an interrogation by Mycroft Holmes about who I saw tonight. We'll just have to rearrange a meeting once I am back from Brussels the day after tomorrow." With that he hung up. As the waiter arrived with his whisky, he beckoned him closer and asked him for a little favour, oiled with a significantly larger than normal tip.

oOo

Jim plugged the earpiece into the iPhone's socket, and started listening with a Cheshire cat like grin. It turned Moran's stomach.  _Looks like the cat that's got the cream_. He would never, ever understand his boss's fascination with the younger Holmes. Personally, he was more taken with the older one- his tailored clothes, his wealth and privilege, it all added up to a man whom Sebastian would enjoy teaching something about the real world, where all of that didn't matter one little bit. Dominating the older Holmes would be like taking a Bengal tiger down in a single shot. Terrible, yet immensely satisfying. He'd love to put that trophy head on a wall over his fireplace and salute his victory over all that smugness every morning.

"Oooh. So  _that_  was the link. How appropriate." Jim was talking to himself, commenting on whatever he was hearing. Moran knew it was a recording of a conversation between Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes. That much he knew, but nothing more about the content. At one point, Jim just laughed out loud. "Oh, hun- you just don't know how right you are!"

Fifteen minutes later, Jim pulled the earbuds out and, still smiling, went over to the sideboard and poured himself a generous Armagnac from the cut glass decanter. As an afterthought, he pulled another glass over and poured a single finger of the brown liquid, and handed it to Sebastian. Then he sat on the white leather sofa and stretched his legs out.

His eyes were full of mischief. "The plot thickens, my little Tiger, time to sharpen your claws a bit. I have two jobs for you. First of all, you need to really find out where Miss Whiplash has stashed her little maid. No excuses this time; you've just been playing at it recently. Once you've found their love nest, you're going to plant a little spy for me, so I can find out just how much she values that red haired girl warming her bed. She might serve as a hostage to fortune. Ireenee's fortune to be precise. I will trade her for the Code." He sniffed. "Might demand the phone, as well, if I think she'll pay up. Depends on how smitten she is."

He laughed. "Let that be a lesson, Moran. You won't catch me caring enough about anyone enough to be blackmailed over them." He stood up and walked over to where Sebastian had just downed his drink in a single gulp.

"Tut, tut. That's a forty year old Armagnac, Sebbie, not a bottle of stout to be knocked back like you were drinking in the pub with your squaddies."

He ran his hand down the neck of the seated man, who had gone very still. Jim liked to physically taunt the former Special Ops man with just this sort of gesture. Jim knew that Seb's instincts were to smack the hand away and take the shorter, smaller man down in a single backhand chop to the throat. But, he knew that Moran would restrain his natural reactions, in deference to the fact that Jim's protective network would then hunt him down and torture him to death, slowly. Moriarty left nothing to chance. That little piece of insurance policy had been mentioned in the very first interview Seb had with the man he now called his boss.

Since then Moran had learned to restrain his baser instincts to fight back when Jim provoked him so.  _A sniper is patient._  He had learned more about that in the past five years than he had in all the rest of his life. His admiration for the genius of the Irishman sustained him through the more difficult periods. And his respect for the sheer evilness of the mind behind those dark eyes had grown. He couldn't leave now, even if he wanted to. His fascination held him there. Which was a good thing, because Jim had made it clear that if Moran ever even thought about it, it would be his last thought. "The price paid, my little tiger. No one month's notice, no voluntary redundancy possible. You know too much to be set free."

As if he ever would go. Civilian life was boring, even when serving in the criminal ranks. The only thing that came anywhere near the adrenaline rush of a battlefield sniper's kill shot was being with Moriarty and using those same skills to a different purpose. He had enlisted for life. He leaned into Jim's caress.

"Shall I start tonight? I could track her from the St Pancras Hotel. Milverton said she was there to see some Frenchie client."

"What a good idea. Put your nose to the floor like a good dog, and sniff her out. Find the tracks of those stiletto heels, and run her to ground in her lair. Go on, you know you enjoy this part the most."

So Moran did just that, and enjoyed himself greatly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Humint is spy speak for "human intelligence", the one precious commodity in national security that is not particularly dependent on technology. Gathering intelligence from individuals who have special access to secret information is what spying is all about.


	23. Embedded Asset

**Chapter Twenty Three: The Embedded Asset**

Sir Thomas Weston came in the back door, entering the Palace of Westminster through the Member's Entrance. He'd crossed from Downing Street and then ducked around the usual tourist mobs by going down the stairs into the Westminster underground station, and following the tunnel under Westminster Bridge Road. It was always best to avoid the queues at the main St Stephens Entrance. He'd made the mistake early in his career of using that one, and being got at by lobbyists. Flashing his ID and pushing his briefcase through the security scanner, he nodded a greeting to James Alexander, Junior Minister at the MOD as he went out of the same entrance, presumably on his way back to his office on Whitehall.

The Permanent Secretary was on auto-pilot as he navigated the back stairs up from under the tower that housed Big Ben, and then up another set of stairs to the Central Lobby. To the left was the House of Commons, which appeared to be still in session this evening. He carried on straight across the octagonal high ceilinged chamber and into the passageway to the House of Lords. Up yet another set of stairs, and he entered the committee room corridor. Fourth room along was unlocked and yet not in use; the lights were off. He entered, and heard Sir Charles mutter "Evening all". He locked the door behind him and turned one of the light switches on.

He gave a rather pained smile of greeting to the bespectacled man. "You asked to see me. You understand why it has to be here."

"Oh, yes, of course. Wouldn't be good for that toffee-nosed reputation of yours to be seen consorting with the likes of me, would it now?"

"Why did you need to see me?"

"Pass on a message; he who must be obeyed has asked me to play messenger boy." Even in the dim twilight coming in the windows overlooking the Thames, Milverton could see the grimace on the patrician's face. "Relax,  _old chap_."

If the emphasis was a bit sarcastic. Sir Thomas chose to ignore it.

"You'll like this one, I promise. You know that Spending Review meeting next Tuesday? The one where you and the Cabinet Minister get a chance to scrutinise the budget requests from the Security Services in all their glory?"

The civil servant stiffened. "That's not for public discussion. And how the hell did you know that the meeting had actually been called for that day?"

"Never you mind that. I've got me own sources. What matters is that he wants you to apply a little pressure on Mycroft Holmes' budget proposal."

"How? His is miniscule compared to Five, Six and GCHQ. You know that the PM thinks his department is the most cost effective in the whole bloody set up!"

"Well, this isn't about bang for buck, is it? You want to take aim at something- I don't care what; doesn't matter. It's all top secret anyway, so I'm not likely to know, am I? Just make him sweat. Or rather do as you civil servants always do, fight your wars by proxy. Brief the Cabinet Minister to do your dirty work for you. Just make the man sweat. If you get the chance, you can even remind him about that agent ended up dead on the steps of Thames House."

"He won't like it."

"Who, Holmes or the Minister?"

"Both."

"Tough shite, as the boss would say. Just do it. It's what you're good at. You can always blame the Minister for not following his brief. He doesn't know Holmes all that well yet. New boy brought in during the recent re-shuffle, just hasn't been properly house-trained yet. You can do this."

He sighed. He could, and that was the point. Milverton knew just how far to push him. Nothing unreasonable, nothing that would damage the reputation of his embedded asset.  _Sordid; how the hell did I ever think I could manage to keep this from escalating?_  The accumulation of little favours just made the whole thing worse, binding him inexorably to the blackmailer. If he'd actually been caught in public putting his hand down the trousers of that delightful creature in Cannes, he might have kept his career intact, even if it was socially embarrassing. None of these little 'favours' were illegal, but they were highly questionable. Exposure now would destroy his hopes at adding the coveted KCMG initials at the next Honours List.*

oOo

Kate handed Irene a glass of chilled white wine- a 2007 Domaine de Chevalier, from a fine vineyard in the Bordeaux region of France.

"It's wonderful, my dear. Thank you."

The red haired girl smiled. "I know what you  _LIKE_ , and I'm just delighted that the cancellation means a girls' night in. I'm going to get into something more comfortable."

Irene kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs up. She took the first sip, and revelled in the combination of finely balanced acidity with the luscious mouth feel of one of the world's finest wines. There were hints of apricot and vanilla which came from being aged in oak barrels. It had been a gift from grateful client, who just happened to be a Master of Wine. The gift card had simply said "To my Mistress of Pain and Pleasure"

The little sitting room in the Chelsea bolt-hole was nothing like her Belgravia drawing room, but she had come to appreciate it over the past two months. For one thing, it was still being kept a secret, which meant it was off limits to clients. To her surprise, she found that she liked that. She no longer had to keep the place immaculate. There was no cleaning service to betray their presence to someone making enquiries. She and Kate managed to keep the place tolerable, but their acceptance of a bit of untidiness somehow managed to make the place feel more lived-in, more their special sanctuary.

When she had taken the phone call a half hour ago from her businessman crying off ( _Damn the bloody board! They want me in New York tomorrow morning at 9am, which means I have to skip our session and catch the red eye)_ , her response had been professionally stern: "Well, for being such a naughty boy, you  _know_  that your decision will just have to lead to … _consequences_  when we next meet." That was for effect; she was gratified to hear the little hitch of breath at the other end of the phone. He might be the CEO of one of the world's most profitable mining companies, but he had a taste for stern discipline. In truth, she was relieved. While it had to be said that she enjoyed her work, lately she had found it more of a trial. Always looking over her shoulder to see if Moriarty was closing in made her tetchy.

As she let the wine start to relax her, she let her thoughts wander. The one surprise in the recent weeks was that she had actually enjoyed the Nude Murders game. Her clients' needs generally required her to play a role. Other than manipulating the Professor to produce the codes, the game played with Sherlock had been one of her own natural personality and the challenge of dealing with that brain. A pleasant distraction from the usual, because most men Irene knew were rather predictable in their physical and psychological needs. Sherlock was not.

That made her frown at her glass. Yes, well, the other unpredictable man in her life at the moment was Moriarty. Not for the first time (n _or the last, I fear_ ) she regretted ever going to him about the MOD code, the photographic evidence she had amassed, and her desire to learn more about Mycroft Holmes. The idea of using the Code to get her get out of jail card was looking more and more tenuous.

Kate arrived back from their shared bedroom, her hair now loose over her shoulders, falling down over a baggy t shirt, and a pair of leggings. She put her own wine glass down and picked up Irene's feet, putting them in her lap and beginning to rub the arched instep. Irene's train of thought stuttered to a stop and she uttered a low moan of appreciation. "Louboutins may look wonderful, but there is a price to pay."

Kate gave her a wicked smile. "It's not the shoe that looks wonderful; it's your ankle and leg. I don't mind- this is  _my_  treat."

Irene gave a slightly wistful smile. "Look at us both- like Darby and Joan**."

Kate just matched the smile. "Well, would that be so bad? If there is any hope of settling down and being a couple, you know that I will be there for you. The Work…well, someday you will have to let it go. We could just start now, if you were to say the word. We could disappear, leave all of this behind and make a fresh start somewhere. Would you ever even consider it?"

"Ask me in six months' time, Kate. Maybe then. I've got too much riding on things at the moment. If I get lucky, and things fall into place, then, yes- we will be able to escape. I never thought I'd admit it, but the Work is becoming less enjoyable these days. And, it is always a time limited profession." She smirked. "Can't see me in that gear when I'm sixty, can you?"

"You'll be as beautiful then as you are now. No, more so." She looked up from Irene's feet. "Just let me be there to enjoy you then. That's all I ask."

Irene looked into the pair of blue eyes and wondered what she had done to deserve this. "Well, all I ask for at this moment is a refill." She held up her empty glass. Kate laughed, gathered it up and disappeared into the kitchen.

Irene had never been willing to risk her heart before. Love was a game of capture and control, of dominance and submission. At least, that's what she had told herself before Kate, and it's what she told all of her clients. Sometimes, their attachment to her became too strong, the submission too obsessive and dependent. The moment that occurred, Irene would end the relationship. "It's not good for you; The Woman can never return your affection, nor live up to your expectations. It's better this way." It sometimes hurt her bank balance, but the financial loss was nothing compared to the psychological consequences of watching a client come apart at the seams when they realised who Irene really was.  _They fall in love with The Woman, not me._  Kate had been the only exception to the rule. She wasn't a client. She was an accidental collision that had turned into a relationship.

"A penny for your thoughts?" A second glass of wine appeared before Irene's eyes.

"They are worth more, my dear." She put on a pretend pout that always made Kate laugh. That's what she liked about the red head. She liked to laugh and she liked to make Irene laugh. She had wickedly infectious giggle that always brought a smile to Irene's face because it wasn't faked. It wasn't another toy in the box to manipulate a lover or play a role.

"I was just thinking about the first time I met you. If it wasn't for your appalling driving skills, we wouldn't be sitting here together enjoying our wine."

Kate rolled her eyes. "I still say it was at least half your fault. If you hadn't been so intent on that phone call, you wouldn't have entered the zebra crossing without looking. Besides, I was just stunned by…you. To think I could have actually hit you."

"My briefcase was a write off."

That made the giggle come out. "Do you remember the look on the face of that old man who picked you up off the ground when he saw what fell out of the broken case?"

"Was it the whip or the handcuffs that got him more excited? I can't remember because I was too busy looking at you." The two of them smiled, enjoying the memory. Kate had insisted on taking Irene back to her flat to repair the damage and settle her nerves. That simple act of kindness began their relationship.

oOo

"Aw, sweet, aren't they? Two little lovebirds, cooing at each other." Jim's lip was almost curling in derision.

Moran watched the screen showing the recorded feed from 21 Manresa Road, Flat Six. He had nothing personal against the women. They were just…women. Tools to be used; prey to be hunted. He'd enjoyed tracking this one down, and then getting into the flat when they were both out. Jim was pleased with his results, and the camera feed now embedded in their flat.

"Just wish we knew where she's stashed that bloody phone; you're sure it wasn't in the flat?"

"Positive. It's so damn small that it only took me an hour to search every nook and cranny. It's got to be on her."

But it wasn't. The spy camera proved that. When Irene took the call from her businessman client this evening, it was answered on the sapphire blue Vertu. "She's transferring the calls; same number, new phone."

Moriarty stood and stretched. "All this late-night TV is making me goggle-eyed. Need some stimulation!" He rolled his neck, first to the right and then to the left, then wandered off to the kitchen. The Irishman was wearing a set of electric blue satin pyjamas and dressing gown. Moran was still wearing the dark trousers and navy Aran pullover he'd had on when tracking Adler. He could hear the sound of the Nespresso machine in the kitchen.

Jim returned. He was carrying two cups, and Moran was touched. "Don't get your hopes up, Tiger. Mine's decaffeinated; yours isn't. I need you to do something for me tonight. But before I tell you, let's take a quick look at what's on the other channel."

Moran obliged and switched to the data stream coming from Baker Street. Watson was sitting at the table. His laptop was open, presumably on the blog he was always writing. Moriarty had taken to planting comments on the posts, disguised of course, but he expected that Sherlock would be able to figure out who was sending them.

Sherlock was watching a TV programme, but the screen was off camera, so Jim couldn't tell what it was. There was dialogue going on, but it wasn't clear. Jim smirked at the sight of Sherlock in his blue silk dressing gown, his knees tucked up in his chair so that he looked like he was a stork perching on a roost instead of normal person sitting.

He suddenly gestured dismissively. "How can you call this a classic, John? It's AWFUL. I mean, seriously, this guy makes Lestrade look intelligent. He's old, befuddled by the vast quantity of beer he's just consumed. No wonder he can't figure it out. I'm not surprised they relegated him to the provinces. Thames Valley Police make the Met look positively stellar by comparison."

John didn't even look up from his PC. "Colin Dexter is a fine murder mystery writer, Sherlock. Just hang in there, Morse will solve it eventually. He always does."

"Well, if you ask me, that might be because he has Sergeant Lewis to help; marginally more intelligent than Donovan."

John chuckled. "I thought you'd like this programme, simply because they never seem to make the forensic team important."

That raised a frown on the consulting detective's face. "But, I value forensic work. It's just the idiots who do it for the Met are so useless at it. This …" he just waved at the TV," doesn't even qualify as bad police procedure; it's just preposterous entertainment."

"You've accused my blog of being entertainment, Sherlock."

"Well, at least it has the merit of bringing in the occasional client who isn't boring." He yawned.

Moran was watching Jim as he took in the conversation happening in Baker Street. The Irishman yawned and then muttered, "I agree with you, Sherlock; this …domesticity is just so  _BORING_."

Watson closed his laptop and stood up. "Time you went to bed, Sherlock. Your flight tomorrow morning is at 8.15, which means you need to leave here by 6.45 at the latest."

John couldn't see Sherlock's pout, but the camera could. "You've sure I can't entice you into coming?"

"You know art theft bores me. No need for medical input. And Oslo is bloody freezing. I didn't like it when the army took us over to Norway for winter exercises."

"Lucky for you then that the British decided to fight their last two wars in the desert. Climate must have suited you. Personally, I would have preferred the threat of frostbite to a Taliban bomb."

John picked up the remote and turned off the TV and DVD recorder. "Bed. I'll get up to make sure you make the taxi."

"I did manage to live on my own for years without you being my alarm clock, John."

"Not going there; it's too late to get into an argument." He yawned.

Once again, Jim yawned. Moran didn't.

When the Irishman turned off the television, he turned to face Sebastian. "Ok, while all of us normal mortals are putting our heads down for the night, I want you to go on the prowl. Roust up a couple of heavies you can trust, and plan a kidnapping. Surprise me with your ideas over breakfast tomorrow. We will have to wait to actually run it until after our Super Sleuth's back from Scandinavia. Once we can get that red-haired miss into our clutches, my guess is that Irene's cry for help just might end up on his phone. And, I'm hoping that we can manage to finesse a Round Three that involves a threesome: Irene, me and Sherlock. Now that  _should_  be entertaining!"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: 
> 
> *KCMG (Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George) is the highest Queen's Honours given to senior civil servants. In the lobbyist's world (which I have inhabited in my career) the initials also stand for "Kindly Call Me God" in line with the person's over-inflated opinion of themselves.
> 
> ** Darby and Joan is a British proverbial phrase for a married couple content to share a quiet life of mutual devotion


	24. Under Seige

"Right, I'd like to call this meeting to order, gentlemen…and ladies." Julian Seabeck MP, the new Cabinet Minister tried to ensure that his voice conveyed an authority that he obviously didn't feel. The eyes of the twelve other people in the room came to rest on him as he took his seat at the head of the table, but he kept his eyes fixed on the substantial pile of papers in front of him. To his left, already seated, was the solid figure of Sir Thomas Weston, the Permanent Secretary, and the younger man took some comfort in knowing that if he did anything egregiously out of order at this, his first formal meeting with the heads of the various security services, the consequences would no doubt be smoothed over under his expert guidance.

Five people took seats at the table: Sir Robert Emerald, the DG of the Security Service which he still thought of by its popular name MI5. Then Sir Martin Jenson, the long serving Director of GCHQ sat down. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Vice Admiral Alan North drew a weighty pile of papers from his briefcase, and sat next to Sir Thomas. Dame Elizabeth Ffoukes, Director General of The Secret Security Service (MI6) took her seat, too, but only after the fourth man pulled her chair out from the table for her. She gave him a wry smile for his old-fashioned courtesy, as he took his own seat. The Minister knew his full title, Lord Mycroft, Viscount of Sherrinford*, but Sir Thomas had stressed he should be addressed only as "Mr Holmes". As soon as they were seated, their people took chairs behind them, there to support their leaders should the occasion arise where a fact or figure needed was not remembered.

Quiet conversations that had been running until now came to a halt as all eyes fixed on him. He cleared his throat, hoping that the act did not betray his nervousness. "Right, thank you all for finding time in what must be rather busy diaries. It has taken some time…" here he cast a glance to Sir Thomas "…to find a date that worked for you all. I need not stress the importance of getting you all in the room at the same time for this discussion, given the Cabinet Office's commitment to ensure more joined-up government."

"As you all know, because the agenda is sitting there in front of you, this meeting has been called to address the Efficiency and Reform Action Plans of each of your services. I would like to focus our attentions in particular on the ERG side letters that will be going into the Spending Review process; these outline your individual service's objectives and commitment to the Civil Service Reform Programme. What makes this different perhaps from earlier such meetings is that, unlike my predecessors, I am committed to the elimination of waste and the duplication of effort between the various services represented here today."

"In preparation for the Cabinet Office's submission on your behalf the Treasury's current spending Review, we need to demonstrate that each of your services is ensuring that impact on growth is a properly evidenced factor in the assessment of all major projects." He'd learned his brief well- right down to the vocabulary that made Whitehall almost impenetrable to normal civilians.

Now he gestured to the pile of papers. "I've had a look at your budget proposals. I would like to hear from each of you how you intend to justify the largest line item project in your budget. We will start with you, Dame Elizabeth; ladies first, as they say. What can you tell us about the proposed  _Chameleon_ project and why does it seem to cost so very much?"

Mycroft watched the new minister.  _Nervous. He's too inexperienced for this kind of in-fighting._  He controlled his facial expression so that no one would know what he was thinking. But it wasn't good. To have an inexperienced minister defending one's corner in a spending review did not bode well. The post-9/11 years of soaring security budgets might have been acceptable when every country in the world was playing catch-up against terrorism. But, now in recessionary times and the pressures of fiscal restraint, it was becoming increasingly difficult to justify the largess of bloated clandestine budgets when hospital wards were being closed, child benefits cut, and taxes raised on middle class voters who had brought the current government to power. That dreaded word "transparency" was beginning to be bandied about the corridors of Westminster as MPs in marginal seats began to worry about their chances of re-election.

He listened to Elizabeth Ffoukes' explanation of the value-for-money aspects of her latest covert hiring plans. "Human intelligence is the most difficult to obtain, Minister. Recruitment of the right people is challenging, but we're already seeing the benefits of it. Just last month, yet another covert cyber-attack from Chinese sources was thwarted by a tip off from an embedded asset. Quite simply, we are paying for years of relying too heavily on technology as the means to protect British national interests abroad."

The Minister was trying to look tough. "Well, that may be true, but every other department has been forced to rethink their major project expenditure. It would hardly make a material difference if the Chameleon figure was cut by say, 20% - just to show willing."

"Actually, it would, Minister. Who is to say which part of the budget should be cut? With respect, would you be able to make a decision to cut the recruitment of say a key agent in Yemen in order to keep an agent in Mali? And when the former turned out to be the centre of a new plot against mainland Britain, how would you justify it to the victims of such a plot? The danger of numbers is that they imply an ability to prioritise. In our business the only time you can say definitively that you got it right or wrong is with hindsight."

Her delivery was smooth, but with just enough Northern edge to her accent to drive home the point. Unlike the other two heads of service, Elizabeth Ffoukes was not a public school educated, Oxbridge graduate who had done time in the back corridors of Whitehall, Westminster or Sandhurst. She was a Mancunian by birth, and a tough, no-nonsense woman whose career had been spent working her way up the ladder in MI6. She's never had field experience, and was an analyst by aptitude. It was a good foundation for being able to manage a service that was the largest and most complex, a veritable mine field of ethical issues, when actions overseas had to stand up to scrutiny in a British context. Mycroft did not envy her. He considered her a safe pair of hands.

The discussion moved around the table, with each of the services taking it in turn to be put under the microscope and pressured into accepting some cuts.

"Mr Holmes, last but certainly not least." The attempted joke raised nothing more than a few eyebrows. "Would you care to take us through your line items, please?"

"In fact, Minister, the Security and Liaison Office is the least demanding of the services, in terms of its call on the public purse. The largest expenditure item on my budget wouldn't even make it to the top 100 of any of the other services represented around this table."

"Nevertheless, Mr Holmes, we all need to be seen to be willing participants in the reform. Even your humble department. It could be argued for example, that your department can hardly justify any operational agents. How does liaison require, what's the phrase these days,'boots on the ground'?"

Mycroft fixed a stare not at the minister, but rather at the Permanent Secretary's head, which resolutely refused to look up from the papers he was making notes on. Everyone else in the room apart from the Minister and the Permanent Secretary knew what that stare meant.  _How dare you lose control of your politician to the point where he questions my team?_  There would be words. Later. Perhaps he would command his presence at the Diogenes Club's Strangers Room. All this occurred in the tiny gap of silence between the Minister's question and Mycroft's answer.

"If the Minister would like to take that question up with the Prime Minister and Her Majesty, he might learn the answer to that question in a more eloquent way than I am capable of delivering."  _Boom. Don't challenge what you don't understand, new boy._

But the minister was an idiot. Undeterred, he then went on to ask. "But what about this Project 473? That is something that is supposed to be joint funded by the Americans. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, the NSA and CIA are both contributing to it. It involves an important activity that our two countries have agreed in order to protect the intelligence asset developed four months ago by SIS and GCHQ. As such, it is an important expression of the special relationship, and the most tangible demonstration of the American Government's willingness to share intelligence with this country."  _And for God's sake, don't ask me to tell you what Bond Air involves. You'd leak it as soon as you could._  Mycroft's opinion of the Minister had fallen with each statement he uttered. He levelled a firm look at the politician.

Undaunted, no, actually, a bit irked by Mycroft's resistance, the Minister ploughed on. "Yes, well, the Americans are much bigger than we are, so it only makes sense that they pay the larger share of the project. This suggests you agreed a 50/50 split, which is just preposterous."

"Can I remind the Minister that the Americans have an intelligence budget that is more than twenty times the size of the combined total of the UK's resources? Yet, because of our special relationship, we get access to far more of their intelligence than they do ours. Our ability to draw in the Americans to work with us is what makes this project worth every penny." Mycroft glanced now at Sir Thomas. By now the Permanent Secretary should have stepped in to quietly support the project. He knew the politician was just out of his depth here. But, the Permanent Secretary just kept his eyes down on his notes and kept writing.

By the time he left the committee room, Mycroft was in a towering rage. Not that you would know it from the exterior. His demeanour to all but a very few people who knew him exceedingly well would have been described as polite, charming, and professional. The other heads of services knew, from past experience, however, that when Mycroft Holmes was crossed, he would find a way to make the offending person learn just what a mistake that could be.

"Vice Admiral, let me walk with you back to the department." Mycroft tapped the uniformed man's elbow and they left the Cabinet committee room together.

Elizabeth Ffoukes managed to contain her smile. She knew that the navy man would be getting an earful about the stupidities of that MOD man losing the Code. That little fiasco had just cost Mycroft 6% of his budget on Project 473. With Langley being unhappy with the turn of events, too, she wondered whether Bond Air would ever get airborne after all. Like Mycroft, however, she knew how important it was to keeping the Americans onside when it came to sharing intelligence. Maybe she could find a little extra somewhere in her own voluminous budget that could go some way to funding the project. It couldn't hurt to have Mycroft Holmes' appreciation. He rarely gave it, but she never knew when it just might come in handy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: * If you want to know more about Mycroft's title, do read my story Entitled, a five plus one story.


	25. Trusted Allies?

"I'm sorry, Mycroft; but he's so green that the sap is just hopeless at taking a brief. You know politicians. The younger they are, the more stupid they are. This one thinks he knows better, and when I get even the slightest bit firm with him, he calls me a Sir Humphrey and then just ignores everything I tell him. You're lucky it wasn't worse. I mean everyone else had to give up 10% on their largest project. I had to work hard to get him to rein in his enthusiasms. But, that's what old school chums do for one another, isn't it?"

Sir Thomas Weston's apology was being delivered over a coffee at the Diogenes Club. Summoned by Mycroft to pay penance for his performance at the committee meeting, the Old Etonian was trying to soothe Mycroft's temper. He knew the man well enough to know that behind the charming façade he would be seething. They had been to school together, after all.

"Well, Slider; I expected better of you. Really, you are losing your grip if you can let him get away with it." Mycroft's use of Sir Thomas's school nickname was just one more example of the man's ability to remind the Permanent Secretary of his mistakes. 'Slider' got his name from his habit of being chronically late for class, sliding into his seat at the last possible moment before it would be seen as meriting a detention. More than once, a Master would turn his back on the room to write something on the board, and Thomas would sneak into his seat. When the teacher turned and saw the new arrival, Mycroft sitting at the next desk would be asked to confirm when Weston had actually arrived. More than once, Mycroft had carefully pushed the time back by just enough to avoid the punishment. It should have made Thomas grateful; in fact, it had grown over the years into a resentment of his dependence on the reputation of the other boy to save his own.

Which is one of the reasons why Sir Thomas agreed to brief the new Minister to tackle Holmes' budget, in line with Milverton's request. The blackmailer's boss might have his reasons to want to put pressure on Holmes, but on this occasion he found a willing partner in the senior civil servant.

Being summoned to the Diogenes Club was just another nail in the coffin, designed to remind Sir Thomas of the Viscount's superiority. Always smarter, more popular, successful and effortlessly brilliant, Mycroft Holmes had inadvertently rubbed the nose of the Permanent Secretary into his 'mistakes' once too often. He knew that Sir Thomas had been trying to get into the club for the past three years. But, until the Queen decided to grant those mystical KCMG initials to his name, Sir Thomas knew he wouldn't get past the front door under his own steam. So, demanding that he meet him here was a calculated insult- a painful reminder of who was the holder of power in this relationship.  _Well, Holmes, I can fight dirty, too. I enjoyed telling that young git just how to get up your aristocratic nose. Just like I am going to enjoy telling you the 'latest gossip' about the black sheep in your family._

"Oh, don't worry. I will get the man under control. And not much harm done, in the great scheme of things, is there? I mean while everyone else lost 10%, you managed to pin his ears back and got away with only a 6.5% cut." He could see Mycroft phrasing his caustic retort, so he moved on quickly. "On a different matter, Mycroft, are you aware that your little brother is keeping rather disreputable company these days? He was seen in the Gilbert Scott bar the other night having a drink with a rather notorious dominatrix. You know, The Woman- that one who got Bertie into so much trouble with his Mrs last year. You really should keep him on a tighter leash, you know. Blackmail material could get back to tarnish that halo of yours."

That comment made Mycroft swallow the barb he intended to deliver to Sir Thomas, and re-think. He knew from his surveillance team's report that Sherlock had been seen going into the St Pancras Hotel. But they had been unable to get someone in the room fast enough to identify who he was meeting.  _("It was only a fifteen minute meeting, sir. By the time we got someone on site, it was over and he was on his way out the door."_ ) Such was their excuse. He would have to have words with them. From past experience, he knew that Sherlock was perfectly capable of leveraging fifteen minutes into a major problem.

He raised an arched eyebrow at the older man sitting in the chair opposite him. "I don't see what concern that is of yours, Slider. Best stick to the messes in your own backyard before you start looking for trouble elsewhere."

Sir Thomas decided to play a straight bat. "Oh, don't get alarmed, Mycroft. Just giving you a heads up, that's all. Other people are apt to make a real meal out of that sort of thing. Your brother is in the newspapers often enough these days for his 'sleuthing'." He put as much of a sneer on the word as he thought he could get away with. "Wouldn't do to get the tabloids excited about what he gets up to in his spare time. Bad enough that he shares a flat with an older man."

Mycroft controlled every muscle in his face, as he moved Sir Thomas into a new category in his Mind Archive. The tactical alliance that Mycroft had accepted - keeping this senior civil servant on side and able to influence his minister- was now officially over. No longer in the 'inept, harmless but occasionally useful" filing drawer; with that snide innuendo, the man was now filed in the "do something to remove this annoying obstacle"cabinet. Yes, school 'chums' were only to be tolerated if they were useful.

He put on his urbane smile. "Yes, well, enough of this, Thomas, we both have work to get to." He stood up and shook hands. "My next meeting is probably out in the foyer now, wondering what to make of a gentlemen's club, so we'll have to carry on with this conversation the next time we meet."

He touched the button by the side of the door, and it was opened by one of the uniformed concierge staff, who would escort Sir Thomas from the building. No non-member was allowed to walk unaccompanied on club premises. Confidentiality and complete privacy were the hallmark of the club, which suited him perfectly, given that his next guest was Dr Esther Cohen.

But, if he had thought that the grey haired psychiatrist would be intimidated by the Diogenes Club's masculine aura, he realised within seconds that he'd made a mistake. Esther was most amused. She accepted his offer of a chair and a cup of tea with good humour. "At last, you have decided to allow me into your inner sanctum, your natural habitat. How very trusting of you, Mycroft."

He knew the gentle tease was probably justified. In all the years of her treating Sherlock, he had always arranged to meet at either his town house or her office; never had he mixed his professional life with his familial responsibilities.  _Interesting- without thinking about it, have I just confessed that my concern for Sherlock's recent escapades has become a worry on a professional level?_  Perhaps.

He gave her his most enigmatic smile. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Dr Cohen. It was simply a matter of convenience that the venue was chosen. No deep dark secret or hidden agenda, I can assure you."

"Then what can I do for you, Mycroft?"

"I would like your professional opinion, doctor. Sherlock has been on this new medication for nearly a month now. I understand that you speak with him once a week, as agreed; the 'terms' of the agreement reached at the clinic are still in place, are they not?"

She looked at the man sitting across from her. In many ways, she found him easier to understand than Sherlock, who was still resistant to opening up to any medical profession.  _So, why is Mycroft concerned now? What has triggered this meeting?_  She was therefore cautious in her answer.

"That is actually not one question, but rather several; or to put it another way, a question that has many layers to it. What do you  _really_  want to know?"

"As always, Doctor Cohen, I want to know whether he can be trusted."

She gave a sad smile. "Oxytocin is called the 'trust hormone' it's true. But, its effect is supposed to improve his ability to trust others, not the other way around. To interact without anxiety, to help him be more interested in social activity."

Mycroft considered that. "Does that make him more vulnerable to being taken advantage of?

That surprised her. "By whom? Do you have someone in mind? If you are somehow worried about John, well, that's just ridiculous."

"No, that thought had not occurred to me. I trust the good doctor. He wouldn't abuse his position of trust with Sherlock; he values their friendship too much. Of course, I do worry about one of the side effects of Oxytocin. I believe it can increase libido."

There was an awkward silence. Esther fixed him with a look. "Are you suggesting that Sherlock's attracted physically to John?"

Mycroft sighed. "Good lord, I hope not. That would get rather messy. I think that Sherlock values his one and only friendship too much to put it at risk by propositioning his flatmate. Actually, I would have thought Sherlock's prior experiences would put him off physical contact for good."

"You're referring to the period when he was living rough on the streets?"

"Well, as he used to put it so inelegantly to me, cocaine is expensive."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that he is a homosexual. He could submit to others' advances in order to gain what he wanted, without being aroused himself. Autistic libido is one of the least researched areas. People on the spectrum are not particularly able to sustain the kind of social interaction to make a sexual relationship into a loving one. But," she smiled ruefully, "he's been an exception to a hell of a lot of other rules, so maybe this is one, too. Do you know of any other sexual contact prior to living on the streets or after?"

"I was about to ask you the same question. I am only aware of one relationship in University; a young man. It didn't last. He never told me why." They exchanged a slight smile, both admitting that getting Sherlock to talk about such things was highly unlikely.

She leaned forward in the leather chesterfield chair. "Are you worried about someone else now?"

"Possibly. A woman whom he met on a case recently has been seen in his company since. And he has told no one about it- not John, not me."

She smiled. "And why would you think that odd? After all, he talks to women all the time when he is working- police officers, victims, suspects- you name it, women have done it, so why wouldn't he be seen talking to one?"

"She's exceedingly clever, very dangerous and a dominatrix."

Esther's eyes widened. "Oh." She sat back in the chair. "Oh, do you think she has …designs on him?"

Mycroft laughed out loud. "Designs? How refreshingly old fashioned a word, Doctor Cohen. Yes, actually, I do think that she might find it useful to in some way draw him to her. Sex might be a lure, but it is certainly not her objective. She is …as transactional about her use of sex as Sherlock was, in her own way."

"Has Sherlock ever had a heterosexual relationship- even something as simple as a one night stand?" Her voice carried some incredulity in it.

"I don't know. I don't think so, but that is not the same thing. He wasn't under the same level of surveillance in his first two years of University. I was away a lot."

"He could be attracted to her for other reasons, you know. You say she is clever. We both know that there are very few people who can keep up with him. If she were one, then that might be draw enough. Have you asked him about her?"

Mycroft frowned. "No, it's…complicated."

She laughed out loud; he probably didn't get the Facebook reference. "When is anything involving Sherlock anything but complicated?" She watched Mycroft's face. "Listen, he was the one who asked for the oxytocin. Maybe…" she looked at the older Holmes brother, wondering not for the first time, whether the two men were really so different. "Maybe it's time we trusted him."


	26. Tactical Alliance

It was late. Or early, depending on one's perspective. John had gone to bed hours ago, but Sherlock was still sitting in his chair. The lights were off; the flat only had the ambient glow of the street lights through the windows onto Baker Street. Sherlock liked this time – the streets were quieter, fewer distractions to keep him from thinking. In between cases at the moment, bored witless, but trying not to give ammunition to his brother or John, he was wrestling with a difficult problem.

The index finger of Sherlock's right hand was gently bouncing on the strings of his violin, a slow and steady beat that if he had thought about it he would have recognised as being in synch with his own heart's rhythm.

_Mycroft_. The fingers of his left suddenly gripped the fret hard. He was still angry; he could feel that anger right in the middle of his Mind Palace, like some jarring noise or the clash of a garish carpet in an otherwise serene minimalist décor. His brother was playing games again. He knew it at a deep level; Mycroft was too careful to leave any obvious clues. But the knowledge that came from knowing the man for all of his own life whispered things to him that he knew to be true, even without factual verification. Sherlock had grown up with his brother. He was the object of Sherlock's earliest deductions, the subject on whom he had honed and sharpened his skills of scrutiny. Mycroft was perhaps one of the most difficult men in the world to 'read'- he'd built an entire career based on his inscrutability, yet Sherlock could read him like an open book.

And what those chapters were telling him right now was something really  _annoying._

In the midst of this conclusion, Sherlock became aware of another jarring sensation. He glanced over to the table, where his phone was vibrating, and the screen coming on lit up the room like a tiny beacon. He got up, put the violin carefully aside and picked up the phone.

**2.23am Remember that rain check? Need to see you NOW. Cork St Mews- your usual entrance. IA**

He considered it, and decided.  _If you can break the rules, brother dearest, so can I._

oOo

Sherlock climbed the fire escape stairs. His trip south from Baker Street to this part of the West End took him a little longer than usual, as he had to be very careful to avoid any surveillance cameras. He was not sure  _how_  Irene knew about his sanctuary on Cork Street Mews, but her choice signalled to him that she did not want her movements known, nor his when coming to meet her. As he came up over the top of the metal ladder onto the roof-top terrace, he realised that the restoration project which had been on-going for the past two years was now complete. The last time he'd been here was the night of the pool. He'd been so distraught after arguing with Mycroft that he'd sought sanctuary up here. But now, instead of being the unoccupied space that was both dry and unobserved by anyone, the terrace was now part of a living area. By the furnishings in the room beyond and the table lamp that was on, the building was now occupied, as well. The sliding glass door was open a few inches, and the sheer curtains moved in the cool breeze.

"Took you long enough." She was sitting in one of the modernist chairs to his left, screened from immediate view of the ladder. He came around to look down at her. Irene's legs were tucked up on the chair, and she was wearing a quilted down coat, with a fur hood. She was smoking; he could see the lit end of her cigarette, and the scent of the tobacco was…enticing.

She put her cigarette down in what he presumed was an ash tray, and pulled another from the pack. The lighter lit up her face in the dark for the briefest of moments. No make-up, hair down, her face was drawn and she'd made no effort to hide the fact that her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. Then the lighter went out, and the darkness covered them both again.

She handed him the lit cigarette and picked up her own again. "Sorry- not your favourite brand. I did find a pack of those here a month or so ago. They were cleared away when the builders did their final tidy up. Your last visit about six weeks ago? You didn't realise that the owner had put a camera up here to see who the mystery visitor was- he was afraid it was a private detective hired by his wife. He showed me the clip, and I told him to relax when I realised it was you."

The tall brunet started to chuckle. "All this time I've been using this terrace as one of my bolt holes, I never knew about any connection between it and you." He took a deep drag of the cigarette, pulling the tobacco deep into his lungs and feeling the almost instantaneous impact of the nicotine in his brain.  _Ah, bliss._

"Why should you? I've only been here three times. My client agreed to let me stay here when I called him last night. His wife doesn't smoke, so I'm out here, despite it being November."

Sherlock took a seat in the other all-weather chair. "What's happened?"

The end of her cigarette glowed brighter as she took a deep drag. Then with a sigh as she exhaled, "He's taken Kate. Holding her hostage, and the ransom is my phone."

"Why would he do that?"

"Got tired of waiting, didn't he." She sounded bitter.

Sherlock considered the situation and what he knew about Kate and Irene. "You intend paying the ransom, but don't know if you can trust him."

There was a snort of suppressed laughter. "Oh, I  _know_  I can't trust him. It's just the involvement of his proxies that makes life difficult."

Sherlock waited.

She sighed, "namely, Sir Charles Augustus Milverton and Sebastian Moran."

"Oh, that is awkward." Moran was bad enough, but Sherlock was one of the few people who knew that Milverton was a blackmailer. A client of his had been targeted once, and it was with some degree of difficulty that Sherlock had managed to extract the incriminating evidence. But the client had not been willing to prosecute, said the publicity would be too damaging. The idea of all those photographs being in the hands of such a consummate blackmailer was …worrying.

She carried on in a voice slightly ravaged by the smoking and the crying. "It's password protected, but Milverton will be such an idiot that he will destroy the phone and its contents trying to get into it. There goes my protection. Even if I can convince Moran to release Kate, without the phone I will be exposed to quite a few former clients who will want to ensure that I disappear. Those photos are my life insurance; without them, there will be a feeding frenzy and I'll be eaten alive. Even if I get Kate free, she would have to run for her life rather than stay with me. I'm stuffed, as they say." She sounded bitter.

"So, why are you telling me this?" He'd finished his cigarette and was starting to feel the cold. She must be frozen.

"Come on. I'll explain once we get in and warm again."

She stubbed out her cigarette and led him into the room, sliding the door shut and pulling the thick curtains tight before turning on another light. "I need coffee. Do you want one?"

He nodded and then followed her downstairs to the kitchen. The house was amazing. Décor and furnishings had a vaguely continental feel to them. All open spaces, neutral colours enlivened by the occasional piece of exquisite art- paintings, sculpture and even textile hangings. The kitchen looked like a cross between a chemistry lab and a morgue- all gleaming chrome, steel and marble. As she got the espresso machine going, he waited for the explanation.

Over the top of her cup she looked at him, making proper eye contact for the first time. "I need your help, Sherlock. And I thought our mutual enemy might lead us to a tactical alliance."

He didn't reply immediately. She looked away. "I could try to manipulate you, but you'd see through that, so I won't bother. You and I are not that …dissimilar. I can only guess that Moriarty has threatened both you and John. I've seen the way he looks at you. Oh, by the way, he's got a camera on your living room, so be careful what you get up to there. You are what he  _likes_ , he's obsessed. That makes John a target- and therefore you, too. Well, he knows my weakness and it's Kate. She doesn't deserve to be caught up in this, and I fear that my affection for her will, quite simply, be the death of her."

"If that is true, then what's stopping you from giving Milverton the phone in exchange and then running?"

"You say it as if it were so easy to do. That phone is my life. It is my guarantee that my enemies will leave me alone. Without it, I will be a walking target, just waiting for someone to administer the  _coup de grace_. Kate would be better off without me, but if I do this I won't be able to keep her away from me. She'll feel  _obliged_. And that will mean her death, too. I am truly between a rock and a hard place here."

Sherlock started thinking it through out loud. "If you tell Milverton that the contents will be destroyed without the password, then surely he won't be stupid enough to risk it. He will try to find a way to get it out of you. That means he will have a vested interest in keeping Moran from killing his hostage. I can't see him handing the phone over to Moriarty- to a blackmailer, that phone is worth more than the crown jewels. He'd probably just tell Moriarty that he had it and could use it to secure more dark angels. But generally, Moriarty uses Milverton to do his recruiting for him. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty." He was puzzled. There was something missing in this puzzle. She started to speak, but he gestured in annoyance. "Shut up, just let me think."

Despite the gravity of her situation, his rude reaction made her smile. She waited. He looked off towards the corner of the kitchen, but his eyes were not seeing anything. Ten minutes passed. She had a second coffee. His untouched second cup grew colder by the minute.

"Are you certain that Moriarty knows?" Sherlock's question was quietly posed, but the sound of his baritone voice startled her anyway.

She thought at first to dismiss the question, but then cocked her head, surprised, as she thought about it. The only communication had come from Moran to say that he had Kate, and Milverton that he wanted the phone in exchange. She had assumed that Moriarty was behind both. But what actual evidence did she have?

"I…don't know, for sure. I could call him right now, if you think it makes a difference. Does it make a difference?"

Those peculiar grey green eyes skewered her. "Of course, it does! Moran has been known to…do his own thing, when he thinks he can get away with it, and it suits his purpose. And, Milverton knows that what is on that phone could make him able to dictate terms to Moriarty. I would not put it past the two to be working together on the side, without Moriarty knowing."

When she did not demur, Sherlock realised that another piece of the puzzle had just dropped into place. This wasn't about the compromising photos of people, not even a Royal. Something more was at stake. Something both the CIA and Mycroft knew about. He didn't think that Irene's earlier explanation of the bent CIA man could be enough to get his brother that interested. If Moran wanted the phone, then maybe it had something to do with him. Sherlock was still feeling the effects of the sniper's jealousy, which had driven him to kidnap and administer a brutal beating in the hopes of ruining Moriarty's plans to recruit Sherlock to his side.

He ruffled his hair with his hands in frustration. "There are too many unknown variables in this. I'm missing something crucial." He glared as Irene as if she were responsible.

"What do you think I can do to help you out of this?" He sounded genuinely confused now by her wanting him to help her.

She eyed him carefully. "Well, to start with, you're a lot more mobile than I am. You've figured ways of staying off camera, whereas everywhere I go, your bloody brother's eyes are going to be following me. My bolt hole after Belgravia is blown; Moran chased Kate down there so I can't go back." She looked at her empty cup wondering if three would be too many. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. Nothing of value was left in that flat. Hence this," gesturing to the kitchen. "So, I need you to go get the phone and bring it back to me here."

He looked at her. "Why would I do that? You drugged and thrashed me to get it back before, why would you trust me to bring it to you now?"

"Because I've just told you that you won't be able to unlock it any more than Milverton will. Handing it over to your brother might save a princess's blushes, but doing so would mean both Kate and I would be killed. And I don't think you'd let that happen, just because your brother wanted the phone. He's been annoying you for decades, is my guess. Time for a little independence, don't you think? Make your own choice, Sherlock."

She was looking him straight in the eye now, as if daring him to trust her as much as it seemed she was trusting him.

"Why didn't you keep the phone with you? I thought you said it was your life?"

"Exactly. If Moran thought I had it on me, don't you think I would have been targeted by a sniper's bullet by now? No, I put it in a safe place, in fact, a  _very_  safe place. The only one who can retrieve it is either me or you. Since I'm out of bounds, it has to be you."

oOo

An hour later, Sherlock was standing in front of the night concierge at St Pancras Hotel. He held up a key and said to the bleary-eyed man behind the desk, "I believe you've been keeping something for me. Care to bring me the safety deposit box that matches this key?"

"We don't do this sort of service out of normal reception hours, sir. If you'd like to come back at 7am, I am sure the manager will be happy to oblige."

Sherlock looked at him. "This is a five star hotel in a city that never sleeps. You will bring me box number 37 right now. I cannot wait." He stood implacably still, and utterly determined.

The desk clerk sighed. "It will take me a while, sir, to get the keys to the cage. You might as well take a seat."

But Sherlock didn't, he paced instead.

On his way up the back stairs, the night clerk stopped, put the box down beside his feet, and pulled out his cell phone. A call was made, and answered on the third ring. "You asked to be told when someone came to claim the package. Well, someone has." The person on the other end must have asked for a description. "He's tall, dark hair and rude as hell." Another brief lull, then "Yeah, well make it in twenties please, and post it to that address I gave you." He hung up and proceeded up the stairs.

The actual procedure of signing various forms, showing identification and opening the box with the dual keys was dragged out as much as the clerk thought he could. The brunet was getting very annoyed, and when the box was finally opened, he literally grabbed the small padded envelope and bolted out of the lobby.

The night was just starting to give hints that dawn was not too far off. There was only one cab in the rank, and the driver was asleep, so Sherlock rapped on the window. When it opened, he just said "Baker Street" and then jumped into the back. 


	27. Interception

**Chapter Twenty Seven: Interception**

When John came down to fix himself a cup of tea at 7.45am, he realised that Sherlock was gone. The detective's coat and scarf were missing from the hook by the door, and a quick squint into Sherlock's bedroom showed the bed had not been slept in and the coat was not on the back of the door. He wandered back into the kitchen and tried to rationalise.  _Who knows, maybe for once in his life he's actually gone to get some milk._ As he reached into the fridge for a lemon to put a slice into his tea, he spotted the rank of oxytocin nasal sprays. This morning's dose was still there. That made him frown; Sherlock had been absolutely scrupulous about taking the medicine every morning and every evening, no matter what. He was a scientist who understood the importance of replicable testing and drug trials. To miss one was …worrying.

John wasn't working at the clinic today; he'd planned a quiet morning and then some chores that needed doing. He settled down to read the newspaper over a piece of buttered toast and strawberry jam, but as the morning wore on, became increasingly restless. At nine o'clock, he could no longer contain his concern.

He rang Lestrade. "Hi Greg, is he with you?"

"Nope. I'm knee deep in performance appraisal paperwork this morning, and for once I'm on his side hoping that a nice juicy homicide is called in so I can get out of here and breathe some fresh air. Has he gone AWOL or something?"

John sighed. "Don't know. I'll get back to you when I do." He didn't want the DI to worry, if Sherlock had just decided to go walkabout and talk to his homeless network or something else.

**09.08 Where are you?**

There was no reply.

**09.18 Missed breakfast and a.m. dose- get your butt back to Baker Street.**

There was no reply.

By ten o'clock, John was definitely getting anxious. He didn't want to contact Mycroft, but then the decision was taken out of his hands when his phone rang. Caller ID showed it as the elder Holmes' private line.

"Where is he, John?"

The doctor sighed. "I was hoping you were about to tell me that he was with you. I haven't a clue." He glared around the room, never sure where the surveillance camera was supposed to be.

"The tapes show him getting a text message from an unknown number at 2.23 this morning. He didn't reply, just went to bed."

John put his hand to his forehead; he could feel a tension headache coming on. "Please don't tell me you've put a camera in his room."

Knowing that his end of the call could not be overheard, Mycroft replied coolly, "No, we both know someone else might enjoy that view just a little too much, don't we."

John swallowed. "Do you think  _he's_  behind this?"

"I have no idea, John. I will get back to you as soon as I know something."

oOo

The doorbell rang. Not once, but twice in rapid succession, urgently. John opened the door at the top of the stairs, just as Mrs Hudson came down the hall. "Never mind, John. I'm already on my way. I'll get it."

She opened the door. "Oh my Lord, Sherlock; what have you done?"

Her words and the shocked tone in which they were uttered brought John down the stairs two at a time. Sherlock was leaning up against the door; the side of his head was covered in blood, and he looked dazed.

"I was …mugged, Mrs Hudson. Nothing t…too serious, I can assure you."

John stepped in. "I will be the judge of that," and started his assessment.  _Pupils are equal and reactive_ , but his stuttered reply to the landlady was worrying. Most of the blood down the side of his face and staining his collar was dark, so not that recent. Bruises were coming up on his left cheekbone.

"Can you make it upstairs, or are we headed straight to A&E?"

Sherlock just started up the stairs, moving a little slowly but still managing it without obvious difficulty.

When they got into the flat, Sherlock shed his coat, dropping it over the stair bannisters, too tired to bother hanging it up. He started to walk toward the living room, probably headed for the couch, but John grabbed his shirt from behind and pulled him in a different direction down the hall. "Bathroom- I need to clean up that head wound to see whether you do need an A&E."

Sherlock did not demur, which was probably the strongest sign that he was feeling the effects of his injury.

John shepherded him into the bathroom, and when the brunet sat rather heavily on the edge of the bath, John helped him out of his suit jacket and opened the blood stained shirt. The doctor was relieved to see no other obvious bruising or blood on Sherlock.

"Anything anywhere I can't see?"

Sherlock started to shake his head but stopped when it obviously hurt.

"What the hell happened?"

"I was in a taxi on the way here when the driver stopped suddenly at the pavement to let someone else get in. I have to admit that the back of a taxi is inconvenient when it comes to defending oneself from an assault. He was rather bigger than me, and his knuckles came equipped with something brass. And the next thing I knew, I woke up in an alleyway near the Stanhope Street car park. It took me fifteen minutes to walk here."

Having used warm water from the basin to remove the dried blood down the side of Sherlock's face, John was now investigating the wound over the brunet's left temple. The brass knuckles had left not only a badly bruised surface, but torn a flap of skin several layers deep. As the dried and clotted blood was cleared away, it began to bleed again.

"You'll need stitches- and a blow like that to the head could have caused mild concussion. Are you feeling dizzy and or nauseous? "

"Yes to both, but not badly to either. And, no- we have no time for a detour to a hospital. You need to do whatever you think is necessary right now. I have been robbed, John. Of something very important, and which needs to be recovered quickly, or two lives are at stake."

John started to dab the wound with antiseptic. The bathroom had been used so often for 'running repairs to the transport system', as John liked to describe it, that the cabinet under the sink had acquired quite a collection of vital supplies. He pulled a surgical field kit (obtained quietly from an old army acquaintance), popped on latex gloves, checked the suture needle, and injected the local anaesthetic.

"Sherlock, slow down and start at the beginning. As in, where the hell were you last night? And what has been stolen? Not to mention, by whom and why?"

The brunet just sighed. "I will explain- just when we are on our way. I need to get to a particular house on the Bishop's Avenue, to retrieve the stolen item."

John tapped the side of Sherlock's temple. "Feel that?"

"Just pressure, no pain."

"Right- sit, please. I can't reach to suture otherwise."

He was expecting some barbed comment about his height, but Sherlock just sat on the bathroom floor and turned his head so the maximum amount of light fell on the bleeding wound. "Please hurry, John. Lives depend on it."

John sniffed. But he did stop talking long enough to concentrate. Seven minutes later, he was wiping the area clean and putting a bandage over the wound. "You need to take two ibuprofen, rest, and you missed two meals and one dose of oxytocin."

But Sherlock was already standing up. "Can't wait, John. Don't have the luxury. I won't repeat why."

John sighed. "Then take the drugs now or in the taxi. I'm coming with you. Just think of it as my version of post-operative care."

oOo

Ninety minutes later, John was beginning to think that he should have injected Sherlock with a general anaesthetic, rather than a local. The two men had not only taken a cab north, across Hampstead Heath to the Bishops Avenue, locally dubbed 'Millionaire's Row', but then had scaled a wall, evaded a CCTV system and slipped into a house that that made John's eyes pop in amazement. And Sherlock had still not explained what they were doing there, why he had been mugged or what had been stolen.

"The owner is Sir Charles Milverton. He is a blackmailer. I'll explain later, John, once I recover the stolen property and got it back to its rightful owner."

As he was demonstrating his safe cracking skills- this one made the Vatican Cameos exercise look easy- he just told John that the item stolen was being used for blackmail, and that he'd done this once before for a different client, who had been too scared to put the blackmailer into prison. "Piece of cake, John; he's changed the combination since then, but I can figure it out in less than ten minutes. He is nothing if not predictable."

Unfortunately, the mansion's owner had done something unpredictable. He was coming up the stairs now, and by the sound of it, he had company.

John found himself hiding with the tall brunet behind a pair of designer fabric drapes, trying not to breathe, lest the owner and his guest discover their presence and call the police. He wasn't sure if robbing a thief, mugger or blackmailer would stand up in court, and wondered if Sherlock's injury could be used as a mitigating factor: "He wasn't in his right mind; clearly delirious and delusional following a blow to the head; I was just trying to stop him, m'lud." He played the court scene in his head.

Behind the insulated fabric, he could see neither the man, nor his companion- only hear Milverton's voice.

"I'm glad you've seen sense, my dear. Sending your errand boy was just too, too obvious. Lucky for me, a little bird at St Pancras tipped me off. And I owed Holmes one after an earlier run-in over another client. He's probably not woken up yet- dumped him and his busted head in an alley. So, all-in-all, you've really done me a favour." The man giggled, "Got me two birds with a single stone this time- avenged a wrong and picked up that lovely little bit of you. Now, my dear, you will stand there and tell me the password, and I will unlock it. Then I will call and get your girl released. Simple, really- glad you saw sense."

John watched in surprise as Sherlock started to inch forward toward the gap in the curtains; what was the idiot doing? Taking a peek would almost certainly result in their being discovered. He grabbed the belt of the brunet's coat and pulled him back. Sherlock whipped his head around and glared at John so ferociously that the doctor let go. Before Sherlock could twitch the curtain back to take a look, the two men heard the sound of the safe being opened.

BANG! Both John and Sherlock flinched violently at the sound of a gun going off. John's army training kicked in.  _Small calibre pistol, probably a .22, maybe a Beretta?_  A woman's weapon, that made sense as he called her 'my dear'? John started to move forward, his doctor's instincts now coming out- there's a man down out there, a gunshot victim. This time it was the detective who grabbed John and stopped him from going forward from their invisible vantage point.

There was a gurgled gasp from the man, and John didn't need to see him; he could hear the sound effects of a kill shot, probably straight to the heart. Then there was sound of movement, and an odd noise, sounding a bit like glass and metal breaking, and then the tapping of high heels out of the room and onto the hall landing. Both John and Sherlock stepped out from behind the curtain at the same time, to see the man on the floor. John dropped beside him, fingers reaching for a pulse, but Milverton was dead. The doctor looked at his face, which had been attacked, as well, by his female killer. The man's spectacles were smashed and what looked like a sharp object ground into his face.

Sherlock was looking at the floor - bloodied shoe prints, obviously high heels. He said quietly, "Louboutins- red soled, now with blood."

John was stunned for a moment as he processed that information. He then stood up and ran out of the room onto the landing, then leaned over the bannister, to catch a glimpse of the retreating figure of a woman in a coat and hat walking out the front door. He turned to Sherlock. "Was that who I think it was, Sherlock? And if so, just what the  _HELL_  is going on here?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: this is a nod to ACD canon, rather than the modern version. And, in my defence, it was written well before CAM appeared on the scene.


	28. Prisoner Exchange

Jim was in a mood, not to put too fine a point on it. A seriously foul mood. Usually when that happened, Moran moved out of the line of fire and took cover- found an excuse to be elsewhere, became busy with some client work, or  _in extremis_  invented a reason to get out of town, if not the country. But, this time, Jim wasn't having any of it. He was pacing in the flat, and he wanted an audience.

"Don't you DARE go skulking off into a corner or hiding; I need someone to shout at and it's your lucky day. How the hell could Milverton get himself killed? It's just unbelievable. It's  _amateurish_! I mean, blackmailers are  _supposed_  to get people pissed off at them; that's the whole bloody POINT! But, surely the eejit knew that he had to have protection? That mansion of his was stuffed to the gills with surveillance, yet he let the woman in. And, yes, I have seen the footage. Christ, The Woman just smiled at the camera on her way out the front door!"

Now he turned his dark eyes onto Moran as if he could drill a hole in the ex-army man's head with the sheer venom of his glance. "I've destroyed that tape by the way. I've had a man on Milverton's staff for the past ten months. Didn't want him to get too carried away with his own work to be downgrading what he was doing for me. And that tape was just too incriminating. I don't want policeman plod to catch our little dominatrix and stuff her into a cell somewhere out of reach. I  _need_ her to be out there working for us."

Moran held his tongue. He'd had little time for Milverton, except when he'd proved useful as a way of getting a hold of the phone. Then the idiot got greedy and arranged to meet Adler without telling Moran about it. _Well, he paid the price for his stupidity alright._

Jim was still ranting as he paced. "What the hell was he doing, trying to steal that phone? I could have TOLD him that she'd kill rather than let it out of her possession. How STUPID could you get? Of course, it would be locked. Why the fecking heck do you think I haven't already lifted it off of her? Or ordered you to put a bullet through the forehead of that pretty face?"

He walked off, his body almost quivering with rage. "Why am I surrounded by such FOOLS?You'd think that  _staff_ would be grateful for the opportunity to work with me; instead this one was so fecking stupid, he got himself killed!"

The blonde man made no effort to reply. He knew that Jim's question wasn't meant to be answered; it was just an expression of how angry the Irishman was. And Moran was going to give him no excuse to think that he'd had anything at all to do with it. He still had The Woman's PA under lock and key, and was determined to keep that fact from Moriarty. It was only a matter of time before he could get out of the flat and make contact with her, and arrange the swap that Milverton had so badly botched.  _Well, what did I expect? He was just a bloody blackmailer, not a soldier._

Unlike Milverton, Moran couldn't care less about the photos- although handing that bloody phone which had cost the blackmailer his life over to Jim after he killed The Woman and her pathetic little maid would be an added bonus. No, his motivation was rather different. He wanted only one thing- the code, that wretched MOD code. If he could get it off The Woman, then Jim would have no further excuse for delay. He'd have to go after Mycroft Holmes. And that would accelerate the timetable and bring closer the day when Moran could draw a line under this whole Holmes mess. Moran's irritation with the waste of time, energy and effort that Jim was devoting to this 'game' of his was beginning to rankle.

And, if Moran could deliver the code to Jim on a silver platter, he knew that he would be appreciated for it. Jim was an astute judge of people's weaknesses, but he did sometimes underestimate what Moran was capable of doing. This would demonstrate that he was worthy of more respect. And he planned his own little twist- framing the consulting detective for the murdering the two pesky women would be the icing on the cake. A nice long jail sentence would suit Moran just fine. Keep the man out of circulation and off limits for Jim. That would do nicely.

Moran was beginning to feel uncomfortable under that unwavering gaze being directed at him. As if her was somehow responsible. He decided that being silent might just be riskier than silence, so he found himself saying "Well, at least now she'll be grateful. Why not tell her that you've kept her out of jail, and arrange to meet? Do the deal, pay her what she wants and get the Code. She'll take the money and run now. Then we can get on with life."

Unfortunately, his words had the opposite effect. Moriarty swooped on him like some raptor looking for prey. "Who asked you to think?" He tapped the side of Moran's temple. He sneered. "Yup, thought so; did you hear the echo?" He leaned in to put his mouth next to Moran's ear. "NOBODY HOME, is there?"

He laughed at the blond man's discomfort. "OK, sniper, let me explain it all to you, in words of one syllable so even you can understand. Miss Adler needs to cook out there in the midday sun for a little longer, numbskull. She needs to be afraid, really afraid. Then she will agree to give up that MOD code in exchange for keeping her phone, and she'll leave Holmes Senior to me. I'm no longer content to have her play him; proxy wars are just so tedious. Unlike that greedy little blackmailer, Milverton, I have all the compromising material I need to recruit an endless supply of dark angels; I'm positively spoilt for choice amongst the cherubim and seraphim. What I am after, however, is the archangel himself, and only that MOD code will do it. She thinks she's being smart; she intends seducing Holmes Junior and using that to blackmail his brother. I'm not going to let her get that far. Oh, I will let her see if he can crack it- that would be SO embarrassing to his brother, having to cover up his brother's treason. But, I don't think Junior's up to the task of actually breaking the code- not in a month of Sundays. That failure should give me the leverage I need to convince him to join up with us. So, leave the thinking to me, sniper. I will know when the time is right."

oOo

Irene dressed down for the occasion: black trousers, black pullover, and her quilted coat. She didn't want to be encumbered if it came to a fight. There was a small but very sharp knife up the left sleeve of her pullover. Oh, and the Beretta was neatly tucked in to the top of her mid-calf boot. She was meeting Moran, and she knew he would be nowhere near as easy as Milverton had been. In fact, in honour of his profession, she was also wearing a Kevlar undergarment that could stop a bullet's penetration. She'd been warned that the impact might still be enough to break bones and make her lose consciousness, but she hoped that it wouldn't come to that. Still, she wasn't prepared to go in without every possible precaution. It wasn't just her life at stake here.

Unlike Milverton, Moran wasn't after the phone. He'd want the code- and he didn't even need to break it. He was like some black Labrador retriever, wanting to bring home to his master the desired object to get the pat on the head.

She was lucky that he wasn't the brains of that partnership. She'd put together the image she needed: a photo of the e mail, with a code that was of her own manufacture. She'd taken the five unused puzzles that her Professor had made to entice Sherlock, squashed them together and typed them into the faked e mail. It would take Moriarty some time to figure out they were a fake- and by then, she hope that she and Kate would be long gone.

The only problem with the plan is that she'd be vulnerable during the transfer. She had to be sure that Kate was free before she gave up the fake code. She knew that there would be no reason for Moran to keep her alive once she'd handed over the photo of the e mail. So, she'd have to be able to fend for herself, in the hope that Kate got out and made it to their pre-arranged rendezvous. In an occupation as dangerous as hers, they always had contingency plans. As she entered the lobby of the luxury flats tower in Docklands, she hoped Moran would give her the chance to put hers into effect.

oOo

"Ms Adler, glad you could make it so quickly."

"Holding a gun to a hostage's head does tend to have that effect on people, Mr Moran."

Sebastian wasn't one for small talk. He was a straight-down-to-business kind of person. It wasn't about power-plays or ego stroking. He had no wish to humiliate or assert his own superiority and get her to acknowledge that fact. Unlike Jim, the occasion wasn't all about him. Nor was it about his quarry. The Woman was just that- a woman, and one who would know that he held all the cards in his hand. Why she would willingly walk into a situation where she was so exposed was a mystery to him. But then, he didn't have much time for relations with subordinates. That he would do so for Moriarty was the natural order of things; his superior had the right to expect loyalty and courage in the face of a threat. But, he knew that loyalty was one way. Jim Moriarty would never expose himself to risk on Moran's behalf. So, he didn't understand Irene Adler's willingness to do so for the sake of the person who was currently tied up and gagged in the bedroom of the Docklands penthouse suite.

Although Jim had moved out months ago after he had Sherlock Holmes over for lunch at the flat, the lease had not yet expired. That made it a convenient place to stash the hostage and to meet Adler. Moriarty wouldn't be caught dead in the flat ( _SO yesterday, my little tiger- not that you'd understand)_ , and Moran also knew that British Government surveillance would have been dropped from the flat for resources reasons- assuming that Holmes Junior had ever been rash enough to tell his brother about the actual location of the famous recruitment meeting. And the place was sufficiently private to ensure that no one over-heard Moran's 'negotiations'.

"You have something I want; I have someone you want. A fair trade, Ms Adler."

She pulled out her phone. "I have the code. It's in an e mail sent to my client. I took a photo when he was …tied up. Literally; it was part of my insurance policy, but when I read the e mail, I realised its value to your boss and made the phone call."

Moran got up from the white leather lounger where he had been sitting. "So, e mail the photo to me and we are done."

She smiled, an expression that conveyed no pleasure. "And, why would I do that? You would put a bullet in my head as soon as I hit the send key. And the hostage would be next. No, whatever plans you made for a 'shoot and scoot', that is not how this is going to work. There is something else you need to know. I am currently recording this conversation and the evidence is being sent to an e mail address. Our words are being streamed to the Cloud even as we speak. The recipient will take action against you should you fail to deliver your side of the bargain."

  1.  Moran's face showed no evidence of reaction, but he realised that he had underestimated Adler. An observer who could identify him, even at a distance, with evidence, would complicate his plans to kill them both and take the phone as well as the Code. Plan B, then. Let her think she has won, take the Code, and then kill them later, once the unknown observer was offline and out of the picture, and no incriminating evidence would result. It might even make it easier to frame Sherlock Holmes for the murders.



"Right, now that you've digested that little fact, I think you owe me some proof of life here, Mr Moran."

"Happy to oblige. Back up six paces and open the door to the master bedroom."

She did so, and glanced very quickly in the room. Kate was there, tied up and gagged, sitting in a chair, her eyes signalling frantically to Irene. Moran started to walk forward. Irene calculated the distance and made her decision. She stepped into the room, crossed to Kate at the same time as she removed the knife from her sleeve. One slash of the cords binding Kate's hands, and then she handed the knife to her, shifting the phone to her left hand and pulling out her gun from her boot just as Moran came through the door carrying his own weapon.

"Stand-off- or mutually assured destruction? You pick, Mr Moran."

He smirked at her gun.

"Oh, I know it isn't  _big_  enough to impress you; men are always more impressed by phallic symbols." She nodded at the sniper's Glock with its attached silencer. "But, at this range, even a .22 will kill. Ask Sir Charles." Behind her, she could hear the rip of tape and the gasp of pain as Kate pulled off the gag and shook off the restraints, standing up a little shakily.

"Just send that photo by e mail, Miss Adler, and the two of you can walk out the door."

Without taking her eyes off the sniper, Irene handed Kate the phone and nodded. Kate looked at the screen and saw the two emails prepared and ready to send. The first had a jpeg image attached, the second an MP3 file reference- a way to access the recording that was being streamed to the cloud. She pressed the send key twice in rapid succession.  _If anything happens now, at least the evidence will get to the right person._

Irene's smile was more genuine this time. "Moriarty now has what he wants. Better get on the phone soon if you want to take any credit for this. Or maybe not? Actually, I can't decide whether you are so hungry for his approval that you will tell him it was your idea, or whether you are going to keep your head down lest he chop it off for showing unexpected initiative."

She waited as Moran took out his own phone and hit a speed-dial number without looking away from her.

"Yeah, it's me. Have you just received an e mail with a very interesting attachment?" He then started chuckling. "He says he thought it might be spam, so was about to delete it."

Irene waited, almost afraid to breathe. Would the fake code pass muster at Moriarty's first glance? She regretted the fact that, if not, then she would not live enough to take it out on the Imperial College Professor who had come up with the codes.

Moran kept his eyes and gun trained on her, but was listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. After a minute's silence, he raised an eyebrow. "He says I am to let you go- so, just get out now." He stepped back through the door into the hallway, and then took two paces backwards, clearing a route for the two women to leave the flat.

Irene kept her gun trained on Moran, as Kate stepped behind her and then out the door to freedom.


	29. Covering Fire

Sherlock was at the flat when his phone sighed, indicating an incoming text from Irene Adler. He was grateful for John's absence. He was out doing the errands that he had wanted to do yesterday, but not been able to because he was accompanying Sherlock to Milverton's mansion.

Sherlock had not answered John's question about who the 'mystery woman' was. In the taxi back from Bishops Avenue to Baker Street, he simply said, "John, there are times when it is prudent to protect a client's right of confidentiality, anonymity and privacy."

"Especially when they commit murder?" The incredulity in the doctor's voice was clear. "Need I remind you that NOT reporting the crime risks making us an accessory, or at least complicit in some way?"

Sherlock tore his gaze away from the scenery of Hampstead Heath and looked at him. "Hmm. Need I remind you of what you said about Jeff Hope? 'He wasn't a very _nice_  man' could be applied with even greater accuracy to Milverton, whose blackmail has destroyed the lives of countless numbers of people. That one of them might take exception to him is…an occupational hazard."

He had pushed aside John's concerns about any repercussions. "We avoided the CCTV cameras; no one knows we were there. I cleaned away my fingerprints and yours. We just happened to be in the room at the wrong time. We've witnessed crimes before, John. So I suggest we leave it at that. I am not prepared to discuss this further- and certainly not when we get back to Baker Street where we can be overheard by both my brother and Moriarty."

Perhaps constrained by that fact, John had not said another word, but Sherlock knew he was annoyed. So he wasn't surprised when John called the clinic and said he would be coming in after all for the afternoon and evening shift. He didn't even say goodbye when he left. When the doctor returned, it was merely to change his clothes and announce that he was going out to do the chores that he had intended to do "before that little wild goose chase." That had been for the camera, not for Sherlock, who just returned to his experiment without replying.

He picked up his phone, which was on the table between the windows, and headed into his bedroom, where his laptop was. He passed John's lying open on the coffee table, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour.  _He already thinks the worst of her; why add fuel to that particular fire?_

The text was only an mp3 file reference- with an embedded link. Curious, he clicked on the link, which opened a streaming service. He keyed play, and heard a voice that chilled him- Sebastian Moran.

"Ms Adler, glad you could make it so quickly."

Sherlock listened to the back and forth negotiation. "Holding a gun to a hostage's head does tend to have that effect on people, Mr Moran."  _She sounds so resolute, determined._

"You have something I want; I have someone you want. A fair trade, Ms Adler." Sherlock shook his head; he'd been right- Moran was operating on his own.

Irene's answer puzzled him: "I have the code. It's in an e mail sent to my client. I took a photo when he was …tied up. Literally; it was part of my insurance policy, but when I read the e mail, I realised its value to your boss and made the phone call." Sherlock frowned, stopped the playback and backed it up to repeat The Woman's statement again.  _What 'code'?_ Then the penny dropped- 'made the phone call'.  _OH-t hat call; the one that saved John and me from the snipers._ He remembered Moriarty's threat to 'make her into shoes'.  _Yes, it's starting to fit together. THIS is probably what Mycroft and Moriarty have been shadow boxing over for the past two months. But, a 'code' for what?_

Moran repeated his offer: "So, e mail the photo to me and we are done."

His respect for Irene's intelligence went up a notch when he heard her cool reply. "And, why would I do that? You would put a bullet in my head as soon as I hit the send key. And the hostage would be next. No, whatever plans you made for a 'shoot and scoot', that is not how this is going to work. There is something else you need to know. I am currently recording this conversation and the evidence is being sent to a witness. Our words are being streamed to the Cloud even as we speak. The recipient will take action against you should you fail to deliver your side of the bargain."

His eyebrows rose at this revelation.  _Assuming a lot from me, aren't you, Miss Alder?_  But he also realised that Moran would probably never guess that she was sending it to him. In one way, it didn't matter. The threat should be enough to deter him from attempting a shoot-out. He hoped that Irene knew what she was doing.

"Right, now that you've digested that little fact, I think you owe me some proof of life here, Mr Moran."

"Happy to oblige. Back up six paces and open the door to the master bedroom." There was the sound of footsteps, then a door opening. Muffled noises that he could not make sense of, then her cool tones again- but at some distance now; perhaps she had handed the phone to Kate? Then a metallic sound that he recognised as a gun's safety being clicked off.

"Stand-off- or mutually assured destruction? You pick, Mr Moran. Oh, I know it isn't  _big_  enough to impress you; men are always more impressed by phallic symbols. But, at this range, even a .22 will kill. Ask Sir Charles."

Then the recording stopped. He was left in the dark. He stared at the computer screen as if willing it to have another recording- one that would tell him the outcome of the hostage negotiation. He had no idea whether she and Kate managed to escape or not. As a result, he couldn't decide whether he should contact Lestrade to arrest Moran, or not. He considered her situation. In her place, he would have run like hell to put distance between them and Moran. Only when she and Kate were safe would she text about the outcome. So, he'd have to wait for a couple of hours before doing anything.  _And if I am wrong, then she and Kate are already dead and nothing I can do now will change that._  He found the thought both annoying …and somewhat distressing. His brow furrowed as he tried to deduce why that was the case.

oOo

Irene sat in the window seat of the cottage, watching the waves crash on the cove's rocks beneath the house. Kate had gone for a walk, "to get some air and clear her head". They'd had another argument. The younger woman was trying to convince Irene that if they ran long enough and far enough, that safety would be possible. All it needed was for Irene to "give up the phone."

"If you give him what he wants, then he will leave us alone."

The dark haired woman smiled at the younger one's naiveté. "No, darling; it isn't that simple. When he has the phone, he will make sure that all the people whose photos are on it know that I am no longer in a position to enforce their silence. He won't need that sniper of his to come after me; there will be an army of former clients willing to do his dirty work for him."

Kate had begged, pleaded, argued for half the night, before Irene could calm her enough by wrapping her arms around the distraught young woman. This morning's breakfast had been a quiet affair. Like the storm out in the Atlantic that drove the waves onto the Cornish coast below the cottage, Kate's temper had finally blown itself out. Now she was waiting, a lull while Irene made up her mind how best to tackle Moriarty. She figured that by now, after a day and night of trying to make sense of the Professor's codes, he would know that she had traded their lives for a fake. The only satisfaction Irene could take was that he would be absolutely livid at Moran.  _Good; serves him right._

She'd texted Sherlock before midnight to let him know that she and Kate were OK.

**11.46pm Safe. Watch your back + J's. Thanks**

She'd dithered over that for a while- would it help her if Moran was arrested for a murder he didn't actually get to commit? But, in the end, decided that being straight with Holmes was more important than any temporary pleasure of disrupting Moran. Besides, she didn't need to incentivise the sniper to come after her with even more vengeance in his heart; once Moriarty was done with abusing him for his failure, she'd be on his number one hit list for sure. And, somehow, it didn't seem fair to keep Sherlock in the dark any longer than necessary.

She had to find a permanent way out- something that would take Moriarty and Moran off her case forever. And that meant she wouldn't be able to activate Plan A- get Sherlock to break the code and force Mycroft to protect her in order to save his own reputation and keep his little brother out of the public disgrace of a treason trial.

She could hear the screams of the gulls over the little cove; the storm had driven many of them inland, and they were quarrelling amongst themselves over what little food was available this close into the shore. It was a melancholy cry which matched her mood. In a way, she was deeply relieved that she did not have to trick Sherlock into breaking the code. Over the weeks, she had come to respect him more than she thought she would. That Moriarty underestimated him, she was sure. She sensed something of a kindred spirit in him. Someone as gifted as she was at seeing things without the usual mawkish layers of convention and normality. He was so extraordinary a creature. She'd never really known anyone in her adult life who did not judge her by her profession. It was odd to be in his company, because unlike every other man she'd known, he wasn't drawn into the sexual games of power, dominance and emotional manipulation that lay at the heart of her talents. A refreshing difference, to deal with matters of the mind.

Oddly, she never felt threatened by him; unlike with Moriarty, whose presence made her flesh crawl. Having witnessed the way he and Moran interacted, and contrasted that with the way Sherlock and John had been together- well, she knew which pair she found the more appealing.

Tactical need had led her to rely on Sherlock in ways that surprised her. He had drawn Milverton's fire when collecting the phone. He would have known that she was using him in some way, but even knowing that, he had accepted the task. It meant she was able to collect the phone from the man's house. She just hoped that he wasn't too bashed up by Milverton's thug.  _I'd hate to see that face damaged._  She had a wry smile at her gibe at John Watson.  _Somebody loves you, e_ ven if he didn't acknowledge it.

The Nude Murders game had been fun; a bit of whimsy in which no one got hurt, but two people were amused by their mutual cleverness. It had made her realise that when she needed help, he would. He met her at the Gilbert Scott and came to Cork Street Mews, and kept it quiet. She respected that discretion, and acknowledged the mutual attraction.  _Brainy is the new sexy._

They shared another problem- both were targeted by Moriarty; both had reason to be annoyed by Mycroft Holmes. And both had people that could be used as hostages by their enemies. Not exactly friends- the two of them were like that; both kept people at a distance as a way to protect themselves. Yet, more than a convenience. There didn't seem to be a word for it.

She wondered if she could trust his discretion one last time- to keep the biggest secret of them all. She heard Kate come in the back door of the cottage, stamping her boots to get the mud and wet off. She would have to trust him with their very lives. As she turned to face Kate with a smile on her face, Irene somehow knew that her trust in Sherlock would be reciprocated.


	30. Close Quarters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, where dialogue from the broadcast episodes appears, I am indebted to Ariane Devere for her transcripts on Live Journal. She should be awarded a KCMG for services rendered to the fandom.

**Chapter Thirty- Close Quarters**

It was the sort of social occasion that drove Sherlock into calling himself a sociopath- in the hope of avoiding anything that resembled it. Take the one time of the year absolutely dripping in false sentiment, wrap it up with a box, put it under a tree and hang the fairy lights – and then add a roomful of people, and it was Sherlock's personal definition of Dante's seventh ring of hell.

John had known better than to ask. He just conspired with Mrs Hudson and sprung it on him at noon. In desperation, Sherlock texted Lestrade; maybe a messy homicide would get him out of it. The answer came back almost instantaneously:

**2.14pm No way. You're stuck and so am I. Consider it an obligation. See you at seven pm.**

Sherlock had sulked in his pyjamas while John and Mrs Hudson put strange things up in honour of something called 'Christmas spirit." He had been told in no uncertain terms that his contribution would be limited to clearing away his lab equipment from the kitchen table, and "being suitably dressed before the guests arrived."

He had glowered at her. "Shall I come in a sheet, John? If it's good enough for Buckingham Palace, then surely it's good enough for Baker Street." Mrs Hudson looked astonished. "Buckingham Palace in a sheet? What is he on about, John?" She looked horrified. John gave him a filthy look. "I've got Jeanette coming tonight, so better not freak her out too much. Just get changed, Sherlock."

He didn't move from the couch, until John put on some Christmas music, and Sherlock fled in horror from the saccharine sweet cherubs singing Jingle Bells. When he emerged, dressed in his usual suit, he frowned. John had changed into a rather hideously multi-coloured jumper. As Mrs Hudson reached for another CD from the pile she had brought up from downstairs, Sherlock decided that pre-emptive action was needed. He whipped out his violin and started on  _In Dulci Jubilo_. When he finished, Mrs Hudson beamed. "That was lovely, Sherlock. See John, I knew he'd come around in the end."

Sherlock just said, "it's a traditional carol, macaronic text of medieval German and Latin, which Bach adapted as a choral prelude in BMV 729. Proper music, Mrs Hudson."

Lestrade and John's most recent girlfriend arrived simultaneously, and suddenly the flat felt cramped and slightly claustrophobic. Mrs Hudson was dashing about seeing to people's coats, and John was handing out drinks. Sherlock turned his back on them and looked out the window, but even that pleasure was marred by the distraction of twinkling lights that had been put up around it. He concentrated on his violin playing, and managed to squeeze out a bit of  _Greensleeves_ ; at least it had been written in the 16th century, and not by some mindless Hollywood movie composer.

Fifteen minutes later, he'd run out of proper pieces, and was being pushed into playing "We wish you a Merry Christmas." It brought back childhood memories of being forced to "perform" at Christmas gatherings for the cousins, aunts, uncles and various hangers-on, with his father smiling at Mycroft on piano. He'd loathed accompanying his brother. To this day, he still hated the idea of playing violin sonatas with piano accompaniment, as a result.

As Sherlock finished the tune with a fancy flourish, Lestrade whistled in appreciation, and Mrs Hudson just bubbled, "Lovely! Sherlock, that was lovely!" from where she was seated in Sherlock's chair. Then she spoiled the whole thing by giggling and adding, "I wish you could have worn the antlers!"

He gave her one of his fake smiles- his face was actually hurting from all the effort- and he tried to suppress the shudder. "Some things are best left to the imagination, Mrs Hudson."

He then put his foot into it when John's date offered him a mince pie, and he got her name wrong. Not once, not twice, but eventually realised she was 'the boring teacher'. The look of resigned frustration on John's face made Sherlock realise that whatever he had said had somehow been inappropriate. It was the reason why he hated these gatherings. Saying things to people he didn't know made it even harder; at least the others would be more tolerant. They  _knew_  he was likely to make even more of a mess of it when surrounded like this and under stress to  _behave_.

Then Molly arrived, and the whole evening just started to go from bad to worse. The  _bon homie_  that greeted her arrival was just difficult, and he couldn't help but roll his eyes in irritation. When she took off her coat, the reaction of John and Lestrade suggested she was wearing something worthy of comment. He found it disconcerting. Molly usually wore a mishmash of homely clothes under her white Lab coat, but as the Morgue's dead expressed no taste one way or the other about her clothing, it didn't matter. The black full length evening dress just made her look  _odd_  to him. He tried to focus on John's laptop to block out to the exchange of words between Molly, Mrs Hudson and John, trying desperately to stop his brain from going into hyper-drive over either why John could possibly find the dull teacher worthy of attention, or why Molly was so over-dressed for what had been advertised as a casual drinks party.

That's when he noticed the error on John's blog, and called him over. Once he had his attention, he complained about the blogger's inclusion of a photo of him in that ridiculous hat from the theatre. John responded that people liked the hat; Sherlock told him they don't. Well, he didn't, and he was the only person that should count. He could hear in the background Molly making a mess of an attempted joke with Mrs Hudson. He just told her not to make jokes, and she did her usual apology thing.

If only he could escape, or put headphones on or something to block out the silly conversation, but he couldn't. Now Lestrade was talking to Molly, explaining how he and his wife were going to Dorset for Christmas, and that they were "back together. It's all sorted."

Sherlock couldn't bear it anymore; Lestrade was just being delusional. "No, she's sleeping with a PE teacher." Had he actually said that out loud? Yes, by the fixed smile on the DI's face. Now Molly was going around the room asking people what they were planning for Christmas. When it was John's turn, she said that Sherlock had complained about John going to his sister's. Sherlock shot her a filthy look for the betrayal, and she tried to cover it up but all too late. Then John said to Molly that it would be the first time ever, but he would because she was "off the booze." Sherlock muttered to the screen, "nope" only to hear John's sharp retort. "Shut up, Sherlock."

It was all too much. Molly had managed in the space of five minutes to hit just about every alcohol-fuelled delusion that he hated about Christmas as a time which miraculously healed wounds between family members. He closed his eyes for a moment, and then it just started pouring out.

"I see you've got a new boyfriend, Molly, and you're serious about him."

"Sorry, what?"

"In fact, you're seeing him this very night and giving him a gift."

Both John and Lestrade seemed uncomfortable, but he didn't understand why. John muttered, "Take a day off," and Lestrade followed it up with a blunter comment, "Shut up and have a drink," putting a glass down in front of him. But Sherlock didn't drink, the DI knew that, and as for taking a day off, John knew as well as Sherlock did, that his brain did not come with an on-off switch, and the only interesting thing about the whole evening was that Molly was clearly going on somewhere else after Baker Street. After her disastrous liaison with Moriarty, he was pleased that she might be recovering her confidence, sometimes her chronic shyness was a positive liability to his work in the morgue when she got so tongue-tied that she didn't make sense. He noticed the package of presents (how could he not? Everything different that entered the flat was always subjected to the same scrutiny).

"Oh, come on. Surely you've all seen the present at the top of the bag – perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slapdash at best. It's for someone special, then." He picked up the present on the top of the bag, and continued, "The shade of red echoes her lipstick – either an unconscious association or one that she's deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has lurrrve on her mind. The fact that she's serious about him is clear from the fact she's giving him a gift at all."

He tried to understand Molly's body language and facial expression. But she was always so flustered and awkward, even in the Morgue, that he just pressed on with his commentary, "that would suggest long-term hopes, however forlorn; and that she's seeing him tonight is evident from her make-up and what she's wearing...obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts…"

His curiosity got the better of him and he turned over the gift tag, to see written in red ink,

Dearest Sherlock  
Love Molly xxx

He heard her gasp. And then he realised from the stillness in the room, with everyone watching, what he had just done. Unintentionally. He had not known, but they would assume he did, and that he was being cruel.

Molly didn't help, she just whimpered, "You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always."

Sherlock's first instinct was to flee. Caught in the crossfire of all the faces looking at him, he didn't understand why, but he stopped. Then he turned back to her and said quietly, "I am sorry. Forgive me." He took a step back toward her. He was not a cruel person, just a stupid one. He had never been able to understand people's reactions to him, but he was distressed by her distress. He felt he had to do something to make amends. He tried to think of what his mother would say he should do when something like this happened in the past. He'd ruined enough yuletide gatherings in his youth to last a lifetime, and he'd just added to the list.

"Merry Christmas, Molly Hooper." And he leaned forward and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

As he straightened back up, his phone sighed- an incoming text alert that made him blink. Molly was horrified and stuttered that it wasn't her. Sherlock just said it was him, which provoked Lestrade into a disbelieving "My God Really?!" making Sherlock realise that the others would not understand, so he explained, "My phone." He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the text.

John just said, "fifty seven."

Distracted by the one word text message, Sherlock just said, "sorry, what?"

"Fifty seven of those texts- the ones I've heard." His disapproval was clear from the tone of his voice.

It provoked Sherlock into a sarcastic retort, "thrilling that you've been counting." He walked over to the mantelpiece and picked up a small red box tied with black rope cord. He needed privacy, from the eyes in the room, and anyone watching on camera, so he just said "scuse me" and walked toward the kitchen.

John called after him, "What- what's up, Sherlock?"

He didn't stop, just said, "I said, excuse me."

That drew an irritated reply from John, "D'you ever reply?"

Sherlock didn't reply to that question, he just carried on into his bedroom.

oOo

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the Vertu phone. He knew what it meant, in theory. "It's my life, Mr Holmes." He turned on his own phone and rang Mycroft. "I think you're going to find Irene Adler tonight." He then realised his brother had misunderstood him, so he explained, "No, I mean you're going to find her dead." He terminated the call, and then realised that John was out in the hall, which meant he probably overheard that comment. Annoyed at the intrusion, Sherlock stood up and went to the door. John asked, "You okay?" Sherlock answered a terse, "Yes" and shut the door firmly. He didn't have time for explanations now, especially ones that would upset John. He'd been kept in the dark all along about Irene for a reason. He did not approve of Sherlock's contact with her, and Sherlock felt under no obligation to be truthful- especially now that her life was at risk.

Over the next hour, he tried to shut out the sound of the drinks party guests enjoying themselves. It was as if, once freed from his presence, they could relax. Under the cover of their noise, he moved the standing lamp, and prised up the floorboard, putting Irene's phone in the space that once held the blue sapphire phone she had given him. Then he lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to decide whether this was another of Irene's stratagems, or if it just might be the end game, a final confrontation with Moriarty, which she believed she would lose. Eventually, he heard a few voices saying their goodbyes- Lestrade saying he needed to go as he and his wife would be making an early start on Christmas morning to make it down to Dorset in time for lunch. Then Molly left, too.

Forty five minutes later, the call came from Mycroft. "A car will be sent, because you'll never get a cab on Christmas Eve. A body is being moved now to Barts' Morgue. I will meet you there."

John was sitting on the sofa with his girlfriend, and Mrs Hudson was sitting in John's chair by the fire. Sherlock slipped on his coat and scarf without a word. John just looked at him with a puzzled frown. "Going out, then? On Christmas Eve?"

Sherlock just said, "Mycroft is sending a car" as he turned and fled down the stairs.

oOo

"The face is a bit, sort of, bashed up, so it might be a bit difficult." Molly pulled down the sheet to uncover the head and shoulders of a dead woman's body. Mycroft spoke first, "That's her, isn't it?"

Sherlock wanted to be sure. He asked Molly to show him the rest of her. Despite her reluctance, she did pull the sheet entirely away. He looked the length of the body, noting all the similarities. She had gone to a great deal of trouble, and that made him realise that she would have had the fingerprint, dental and DNA records changed, as well. So, he turned away and just said, "That's her." He left the room, hearing Molly ask Mycroft a question, to which his brother did not reply.

Through the window in the corridor outside the morgue, he watched snowflakes falling, and thought of the extremes to which Irene had been driven. Then his brother reappeared at his shoulder. He didn't turn. He didn't want Mycroft to know the truth.  _Why should he? She didn't trust him, and nor do I. Mycroft and Moriarty are battling over something, and Irene and I are just pawns in their game._

Mycroft surprised him by handing him a cigarette over his shoulder.  _Is he feeling guilty? Good, so he should._  He decided to test that theory, so snarled a "Why?" which Mycroft deflected with a "Merry Christmas". He took the cigarette and commented about laws stopping people from smoking in public places. Mycroft's rather droll reply, "We're in a morgue; there's only so much damage you can do", brought a tiny smirk. Sherlock took a very deep drag all the way into his lungs and slowly exhaled, relishing the almost immediate chemical rush to his brain.

Then his brother asked the inevitable question. "How did you know she was dead?"

He decided in the blink of an eye to keep his brother in the dark. "She had an item in her possession, one she said her life depended on. She chose to give it up." He pulled another deep drag on the cigarette.

"Where is this item now?" Mycroft knew he was talking about the phone; there could be no other such item in Irene Adler's life.

Sherlock didn't even bother to reply. Mycroft didn't want the phone, he just wanted to know that it was safe, out of her hands, and not in Moriarty's grasp. Sherlock found himself wondering if Mycroft had put two and two together about Milverton's death. Probably, but even he wouldn't have known about Sherlock's role in that episode. To buy time, he looked down the corridor to the set of double doors. On the other side of it was a family, clearly distressed and grieving someone's death. Mycroft followed his gaze. Sherlock decided that his brother did not deserve the truth, so he just commented, "Look at them. They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?"

Predictably, Mycroft thought this was Sherlock's way of reacting to Irene's death. He repeated a mantra that had been drummed into them both by their father, after their mother's death: "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock."

Sherlock looked at the cigarette, snarling in disgust, "This is low tar."

That provoked a response, "Well, you barely knew her."

Sherlock huffed, and started walking away.  _Yes, you would think this is a victory, wouldn't you? The dominatrix has been beaten, her phone is out of play, game over._ He gave a caustic "Merry Christmas, Mycroft" to which his brother replied the traditional "and a happy New Year."

Sherlock was still seething when he reached the street. The intervening weeks of silence had led Sherlock to think she and Kate had escaped to make a new life for themselves; now he could only guess that Irene was forced to kill herself metaphorically in order to find the peace she wanted. Whatever Irene's game had been and Sherlock could only still get a vague idea of what that was, she had now removed herself irrevocably from the board. He hoped that both Mycroft and Moriarty bought the deception. He would do his best to provide whatever corroborating evidence they needed.

When he returned to the flat, he went into the living room to see John sitting on his own, with a brandy and a book. For the benefit of the cameras, Sherlock just stood there, and did not respond to his flatmate's rather forced casual greeting. When he didn't reply, John asked him whether he was OK.  _Mycroft thinks I'm rattled by this; let's give him the evidence he wants._ He muttered "Hope you didn't mess up my sock index this time," and stalked off to slam his bedroom door, knowing that his brother would understand the cryptic reference. That John did as well told him everything he needed to know. Mycroft had somehow suborned John into this- they both shared a dislike for Irene that he did not.  _Let them think what they want. It doesn't matter anymore._


	31. Internecine Conflict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am indebted to Ariane Devere's transcripts for the broadcast dialogue. I make no apologies for using large swathes of it for this chapter. My contribution is to set context and push the scene into Sherlock's POV.

Sherlock mourned. Others thought he might be doing so because The Woman was dead. And so she was, in a way. Moriarty had beaten her, to the point where she was willing to be declared dead, to retreat forever from the field of battle. He regretted her departure, her decision. He worried that he, too, might be faced with the same choice.

Irene had chosen to destroy her life to save it, both hers and Kate's, and for the life they would now try to build together. He knew she'd found an escape route. Trouble was, he didn't want to escape. He wanted to win- not just for the sake of winning. This was no longer a game, it was literally a life and death struggle. He couldn't pretend that Moriarty did not exist. He couldn't let his brother conspire with Lestrade and John to keep him "safe", whatever that meant, by limiting the cases he took on, by stepping back from anything and everything that had Moriarty's traces on it. That he might die of boredom as a result would not have been a factor in their consideration. But it was in his. He could only see a future constrained and limited. What might have been frustration slipped down into a spiral of despair, and then black depression.

In his own way, he was as much of a victim of the situation as Irene. The phone might have offered a way out, but it was password protected. He'd spent hours in his Mind Palace nibbling around the edges of that problem. What Mycroft didn't realise is that Irene had this mysterious code on the phone; if he'd known, then there is no way he would have let Sherlock keep it. He still might try to claim it, even now. And if Moriarty found out that Sherlock had the phone, then he expected both he and Moran would come after him and therefore John. Sherlock wasn't safe, and because of that John was at risk; he knew it, and the status quo was just an odd kind of limbo- a vacuous calm before the approaching storm.

It all added up to a deep sense of melancholy, the sort of black mood that traditionally descended upon him at this time of year. He loathed Christmas, and the forced family contact that came in the week between it and New Year. And on the 6th of January his birthday loomed on the horizon. Oh joy, he loathed that, too. He remembered as a child begging his mother to move it to the summer. "It's the worst time of year, mummy. Everyone is grumpy and fed up, no one has any good ideas for presents, and all the decorations have to come down. It's as if the whole world hates me." She had tried to explain the joy of Twelfth Night, of Epiphany celebrations in the Middle Ages- but it didn't placate him. "That was then; this is now. Mycroft has all the luck. His birthday is in August. Change mine." She said she couldn't, so he sulked on his birthday. His father was almost always away, Mycroft was always back at school, university and then his job. It didn't help that his mother died ten days after his tenth birthday. It was truly the worst time of the year.

The mood was infectious. When John came back from Christmas Day lunch with Harry, he too was in a foul humour. She had not stopped drinking, and her "liquid lunch" was brought to an abrupt end when John stormed out. He snapped at Sherlock that he had been right, but not even that kudos was enough to rouse the tall brunet from his dark mood. He couldn't even raise the energy to give his expected, "I told you so." Whenever John tried to raise the topic of what had happened on Christmas Eve, Sherlock just left the room or picked up his violin and played a few bars of a new piece he was composing. In his mind, he called it  _Between a Rock and a Hard Place_ , in honour of Irene. It was full of loneliness. Mycroft and John were clearly in communication; their behaviour that night was evidence enough. That depressed him, too. Irene was  _gone_. It didn't matter that she wasn't actually dead. She was as good as dead, from his point of view.

He had trouble comprehending the idea of caring enough about someone else, to make the kind of decision she had made. Irene wasn't a sociopath; she wasn't on the spectrum, she knew that emotional intelligence was her talent. It was the key to her finding out and exploiting what other people  _liked_. The more he thought about her, the more he realised that was why he respected her. She was like an alchemist to someone like him. He never knew what people  _liked_ , couldn't understand how or why they reacted to him in the way that they did. Why on earth would Molly become infatuated with him, for example? He'd never given her the slightest bit of encouragement; quite the reverse. It made no sense. What chance did he have of making sense of it? Kate clearly loved Irene and the feeling was reciprocated.  _Lucky them_. He knew he didn't have the social ability to make any relationship work. And that made him more depressed.

John was perplexed. He'd seen Sherlock's usual response to boredom, failure or a lack of cases- the agitation, frustration and rash behaviour were now recognised as 'normal'. This lethargy and withdrawal just surprised him, and he didn't know what to do.

On Boxing Day, Sherlock forgot to take his morning dose, and didn't touch his breakfast or lunch; he just didn't see the point of it. John made his usual scene in the evening, and to shut him up, Sherlock ate in silence the dinner that was delivered by Angelo's. By ten pm, he'd thrown it up, and retreated to his bedroom to lie on his bed and count the cracks in the ceiling, and the drips from the gutter as the snow melted on the roof. Then before he went truly mad with despair, he removed Irene's phone from its hiding place and considered the problem. If he could figure out her password, then maybe he could find the mysterious code and regain something of the upper hand over both Moriarty and Mycroft. He spent the rest of the night considering the possibilities. She wouldn't be blatant or obvious- no birthdays, measurements, or other easily deduced four letter and or number combinations. She wouldn't trust her life to anything that easy.

On the third day after Christmas, Sherlock was up early. He dressed in trousers and a shirt, but kept his dressing gown on. No sooner had he appeared in the living room than his phone went. He checked caller ID. He had no wish to talk to Mycroft. He deleted the call. _I'm sick and tired of being spied on and harassed by EVERYONE!_  He opened John's laptop and took a quick look at the blog's comments page. Last night he'd wondered whether Irene might try to leave him a coded message there.

Nothing new. He sighed and picked up his violin and resumed his composing. At some point, Mrs Hudson appeared, and he blocked out the sound of her conversation with John. He tried to ignore the scent of a cooked breakfast being prepared; the very thought of it made him nauseous.

Mrs Hudson was speaking, "Lovely tune, Sherlock. Haven't heard that one before." That led John to ask the obvious, "You composing?"

Sherlock replied in a dull monotone, "Helps me to think."

That led John to follow up with the inevitable, "What are you thinking about?"

For the first time in days, there is some energy in Sherlock's voice when he responds, "The counter on your blog is still stuck at one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five."

"Yeah, it's faulty. Can't seem to fix it."

Sherlock put the violin down and pulled the Vertu phone out of his dressing gown pocket. He replied to John "Faulty – or you've been hacked and it's a message."

John wasn't following Sherlock's train of thought, but it didn't matter. The brunet typed into the security screen "1895" but the phone beeps warningly and a message comes up reading: "WRONG PASSCODE. 3 ATTEMPTS REMAINING". The enthusiasm in Sherlock's eyes died again, and he muttered "Just faulty." He picked up his violin again and resumed playing. Behind him, he could hear John and Mrs Hudson talking in the kitchen, but he blocked it out. Then he vaguely registered that first John and then Mrs Hudson had left.

He was looking out of the window whilst playing a bit that annoyed him. He'd tried several variations, none of which he liked. Then he saw John step out from the front door of Baker Street. There was a stranger, a woman dressed in black who spoke with him as a black car pulled up to the kerb. He could not hear what the woman said to John, but it was enough to convince the doctor to get into the car. In a flash, Sherlock realised that John had been tricked into thinking this was another one of Mycroft's command performances. He threw aside his violin and shed the dressing gown whilst grabbing his coat and scarf. Was this a move by Moriarty? He tore down the stairs and out the door, signally frantically for a passing taxi.

oOo

By the time Sherlock managed to get up the stairs of the ruin of Battersea Power Station and avoid the unknown woman who was coming back down them, he had deduced that John's kidnap had not been organised by Moriarty. He would have never trusted John to walk unfettered, and Moran would have made sure that the army doctor was handcuffed at the very least. So, whoever had organised this did not consider John a threat. He caught a snatch of conversation, and decided to stay hidden. Then he recognised the woman's voice.  _Why is Irene contacting John? Why not me?_

"You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you." Sherlock could hear his flatmate's anger.

"DNA tests are only as good as the records you keep."

"And I bet you know the record-keeper."

"I know what he  _likes_ , and I needed to disappear."

"Then how come I can see you, and I don't even want to?" Sherlock had become something of an expert in interpreting John's anger- having been on the receiving end of it often enough- but this was a new level of animosity he had not heard before from the doctor.

"Look, I made a mistake. I sent something to Sherlock for safe-keeping and now I need it back, so I need your help."

"No." Sherlock could not see John, but he did not have to; he would hear the quiet determination of the soldier in his reply.  _He REALLY doesn't like Irene._

"It's for his own safety."

"So's this: tell him you're alive".

"I can't". Sherlock smirked at Irene's reply.  _Of course not, because I already know, and you know I know, so…this is all about playing John. Why?_

"Fine. I'll tell him, and I still won't help you." Sherlock sighed; he was finding it difficult to understand why John thought it was so important that he knew about her survival.

When Irene asked rather coyly, "What do I say?" Sherlock was startled by the vehemence of John's furious reply. "What do you normally say? You've texted him a lot."

Irene's reaction was a little defensive, "Just the usual stuff."

"There is no 'usual' in this case."

Irene then just read out some of the texts that she had sent him: "Good morning"; "I like your funny hat"; "I'm sad tonight. Let's have dinner"; "You looked sexy on 'Crimewatch'. Let's have dinner"; "I'm not hungry, let's have dinner".

Sherlock could hear John's disbelief: "You ... flirted with Sherlock Holmes?!"

"At him. He never replies".  _Flirting? Is that what she was doing?_ Sherlock had not seen the texts as that; rather, they were simply a way of …bicycling by the window and waving, reminding him that she was still out there and avoiding Moriarty. He never thought it important to reply; he was not in danger, but she was.

He then listened to John saying something about him always replying to everything. Irene chose to see this as something significant. "Does that make me special?"

John's reply confused Sherlock even further. "I don't know. Maybe."

But, if he was puzzled by that, Irene's response threw him utterly, when she asked, "Are you jealous?"

Sherlock waited for the knee-jerk reaction that John gave to anyone and everyone who ever suggested anything other than the fact that they were colleagues who shared a flat.  _Three…two…one…_

"We're not a couple." He almost laughed, but the impulse to do so died when Irene retorted, "Yes you are."

There was a brief pause, then Irene continued. "There….I'm not dead. Let's have dinner." Sherlock tried to puzzle out what she meant by that. But, John wasn't ready to let Irene's couple comment go unchallenged; "Who ... who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but – for the record – if anyone out there still cares, I'm not actually gay."

Because Sherlock knew about Kate, Irene's reply made perfect sense. "Well, I am." But he understood neither her next comment: "Look at us both", nor John's rueful laugh.  _What does that mean?_

Then his phone sighed.  _Oh, STUPID!_  That was obviously a text she had sent him, and the sound of the orgasmic sigh would have been heard by both of them. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, switched it off and strode away. He'd heard enough.


	32. Retribution

**Chapter Thirty Two: Retribution**

Sherlock walked from where the cab had dropped him off at the end of Baker Street, whilst still deep in his Mind Palace. He was trying to figure out the meaning of what Irene and John had said to each other at the Battersea Power Station. It wasn't the wisest thing to do- sometimes he got so distracted by this level of thinking that he lost concentration on what he should be paying attention to- once he'd ended up in hospital, hit by a courier's bike when he stepped off the kerb without looking.

 _It doesn't make sense. What was she talking to JOHN about? Why not contact me, if she wants the phone back?_ He considered whether he would have given it back to her if she had asked. Possibly not, at least not without a lot of questions, he had to admit. He was growing tired of the mystery about this code. He would have liked to have asked about it, forced her hand. He needed to know what she knew about it, why Moriarty would be putting such pressure on her about it, and why Mycroft would be so interested in it. He wondered if she would tell him, if he asked.  _Probably not. At least, not unless it was to her advantage._

He was also trying to understand where John's anger was coming from. Was it something about the dominatrix that bothered him? True, most of John's girlfriends or even casual dates fell into the "sweet but stupid" category. Maybe he found domineering women threatening. Did that have something to do with his past, his sister maybe? He never spoke of his mother; perhaps she had been a dominating influence in his life. He was surprised by John's almost visceral distrust of Irene.

He arrived at the front door of Baker Street without mishap, but then his eyes registered something...odd, so he came out of his Mind Palace completely, and was shocked to see the lock had been forced. Splinters of wood were evident. His eyes narrowed and he entered cautiously.

oOo

John's bad temper lasted until well after he stalked off of the Battersea Power station site. He marched straight past the black car, shooting a fierce look at the attractive woman leaning up against it with a smirk on her face. Once out onto Nine Elms Road, he looked for a black cab heading east. He hated being south of the river; it meant tube lines were few and far between. He'd walked a half mile in frustration as taxi after taxi passed, but none had their yellow light on. Then the black car showed up, and slowed to match his pace. He stopped, and it did, too. Rolling his eyes, he swallowed his pride and got in the car.

He glared at the attractive woman. "Don't say a word. Just take me back to where you found me on Baker Street." She smirked, and the car pulled away from the pavement.

He wasn't exactly looking forward to meeting Sherlock there. Despite his initial reaction to rush after the man, now that he'd had time to think about it, he wasn't sure what the hell he would say. He felt like he'd somehow betrayed his friend's trust by meeting that woman, and talking about him with her. To be overheard just made him almost squirm with embarrassment for a moment. Then he laughed quietly. Sherlock wouldn't get it. He wouldn't understand why John was angry with the Woman. He wouldn't understand why John wanted to protect him from her scheming. Not for the first time since the pool incident, John felt keenly the loss of some of the earlier simple pleasures that had formed part of their relationship. Sherlock was always surprising. His retort to Mycroft, "I'm never bored" was the truth. But since Moriarty's arrival on the scene and then Sherlock's run-in with Moran, the weeks in rehab- well, it had been three months of unrelenting worry,too. Sherlock had withdrawn from him a bit, was more reserved than he had been. Was that Adler's fault? Or was she right? Was he being …jealous? He sighed. She had planted a seed in his mind, and it kept growing, getting in the way of his thoughts.

When he got out of the car, and headed for the front door, he saw an odd scrap of paper under the door knocker. He looked around for a moment, wondering whether one of the Homeless Network could have left it. Then as he came close he recognised Sherlock's writing- "Crime in progress- please disturb"- and he entered and went up the seventeen steps two at time.

"What's going on?" In front of him was a man he recognised. His memory caught up and he realised it was the CIA man from Belgravia. He was bound and his mouth was taped shut, his nose oozing blood which dripped from his chin. Sherlock was sitting in a chair with a pistol aimed at the American, and in his other hand, his telephone. Then John realised that Mrs Hudson was sitting on the sofa, looking shaken. John looked horrified, "Jeez- what the hell is happening?"

"Mrs Hudson's been attacked by an American. I'm restoring balance to the universe."

He rushed over to the sofa and sat beside her. "Oh, Mrs Hudson, my God, are you all right?" He shot a disbelieving look at the CIA man as he put a protective arm around the old woman. "Jesus, what have they done to you?"

This led to a fresh burst of tears, which she tried to stifle. "Oh, I'm just being so silly."

John envelope her in a comforting hug, "No, no."

Sherlock stood up, keeping the gun trained on Nielson. Then to John, he said, "downstairs. Take her downstairs and look after her."

The doctor helped her to her feet, saying gently, "All right; it's all right. I'll have a look at that." She tried to reassure him that she was fine, but the tears were still there.

John stepped closer to Sherlock briefly; "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

This was meet with a terse, "I expect so. Now go." He briefly looked John in the eye. Something unsaid passed between the two men, and when John left he had a smile on his face. He wouldn't want to be in Nielson's place right now. One look at Sherlock made the doctor realise that he wanted no witnesses in the room. For once, the military John won over the doctor John, as he considered what was likely to happen when he left. As he helped Mrs Hudson down the stairs, be could hear Sherlock speaking on the phone to Lestrade.

John sat her down in the kitchen, put the kettle on and asked where she kept her first aid supplies. Once she had a nice hot cup of tea with two sugars, he took a good look. The bruises, scrapes and scratches were superficial, but for a woman her age, still a shock. He gently asked her about anything else- had she fallen? Had she lost consciousness? Did she hit her head or hurt her hip? She just tutted; "no, no; I'm really alright. Just a bit shook up." Once he'd retrieved the kit from her bathroom, he got her to stand in front of the sink so he could use the light from the window to tend to the cut on her face. He gently dabbed some antiseptic on the wound, and she just winced, "ooh; it stings." They were both startled when a shadow flashed by the window, then the sound of a great thud and metallic crash outside. Mrs Hudson winced; "Ooh. That was right on my bins." This observation was followed by the sound of an agonised groan. John decided to retreat, rather than interfere with Sherlockian justice. He helped Mrs Hudson into her sitting room. Hippocratic oath be damned; he wasn't in any rush to see the effects of Sherlock's anger being taken out on the CIA man.

He sat with her for almost twenty minutes before the doorbell went. He answered it to find a police constable on the doorstep. "Good evening- I understand you've reported a burglary? I'm Officer Johnston, and I'm here to take the details. We were told that the suspect was interrupted while the crime was in progress. Is he still here, sir?"

John wondered if Sherlock was done with Nielson. He hoped so. "I'll check. The person who reported the break-in is upstairs in 221b. I'm John Watson, I'm a doctor looking after the landlady, Mrs Hudson who was assaulted by the burglar."

That piqued the PC's interest. "An assault? Oh, my, that wasn't reported. Can I speak to the victim, please? It will just take a moment."

John decided it made sense to use the time to warn Sherlock to finish up. So, after taking the police officer into Mrs Hudson, he rushed up the stairs and into the living room. Sherlock was sitting in his chair, with a frown on his face. The CIA man's gun was on the arm of the chair. He looked up when John came in.

"Police are here. Where's…the burglar?"

Sherlock just nodded towards the hall. "I think he fell out of the window attempting to escape- several times."

John gave the brunet a stern look. "I do hope he survived, Sherlock."

The detective returned the look and said in, all innocence, "By the amount of noise each time after he fell, I believe so. Care to listen?" He led John to the hall window, which was wide open, and leaned out.

There was a feeble "help" coming from the basement well outside Mrs Hudson's kitchen. John controlled his smirk. "Well, that's just …fine. Perhaps it's time to get that ambulance here."

In rapid order, the constable came up the stairs to interview Sherlock, took one look at the burglar's weapon and sighed; "No one reported a firearm; I'll have to get SO19 here." Then the ambulance arrived, and paramedics puzzled over how to move a man with possible spinal injuries. Then a black government car arrived, and two of Mycroft's minions got involved. John lost count of who was whom when some American diplomat then arrived, followed by Lestrade, who just glared at Sherlock. Unlike the rest of the people milling about 221, he suspected Sherlock had something major to do with it all, but he too left eventually. John retreated to Mrs Hudson's flat to keep an eye on her.

It was just after 9.30 when the last officer left and Sherlock re-appeared at the door to Mrs Hudson's kitchen. He wiped his feet carefully, and John smiled.  _Yes, well, she won't like it if he gets blood on her clean floor, even if it is from that wretched American._ The doctor was worried about her; the bruises were now coming out, and she still sounded shaky.

"She'll have to sleep upstairs in our flat tonight. We need to look after her."

She shook her head, "No."

Sherlock agreed. "Of course, but she's fine."

John frowned. "No, she's not, Look at her."

But Sherlock ignored her and opened her fridge, and rummaged around in it, emerging with a mince pie.

John wasn't amused at his cavalier attitude. "She's got to take some time away from Baker Street; She can go and stay with her sister." He smiled reassuringly at the woman and said gently, "Doctor's orders."

Kicking the fridge door shut with a bang, Sherlock frowned as he bit into the pastry. "Don't be absurd" emerged from a mouth full of minced pie.

John wasn't having it. "She's in shock, for God's sake, and all over some bloody stupid camera phone. Where is it by the way?"

Smugly, Sherlock replied, "Safest place I know." He wiped the crumbs from his mouth and exchanged a knowing look with his landlady. She pulled the phone from her bra and handed it to Sherlock.

"You left in the pocket of your second best dressing gown, you clot." She laughed and then continued, "I managed to sneak it out when they thought I was having a cry."

Sherlock grinned, tossing it in the air before slipping it into his coat pocket. "Thank you."

He then looked at John, who had watched their exchange with amazement. "Shame on you, John Watson."

"Shame on  _me_?!"

"Mrs Hudson leave Baker Street?" Sherlock put a protective arm around her shoulders and she leaned in closer to him. His baritone took on a Churchillian timbre, "England would fall." She laughed and stroked his hand, as he chuckled. John looked at the pair of them, and gave a slightly surprised smile.  _What is it about these two? He really does care for her. Where and when did that happen?_

oOo

Later, when Mrs Hudson was ensconced between fresh sheets in Sherlock's bedroom and sleeping with the benefit of one of the doctor's tablets, John decided that events of the day required a stiff drink. After all, it was New Year's Eve.

When he came into the room, he switched on the radio to hear the traditional count-down.

"Before you ask questions…." Sherlock fished out the little grey box that Mycroft had left behind, flipped on the switch and a little green light started to blink. "…I'd rather no one overheard."

His use of the word 'overhear' made John almost flinch given what had happened at Battersea, so he started with the practical side. "Where is it now?"

"Where no one will look." Sherlock picked up his violin and turned his back on the room. Perhaps he was trying to avoid the inevitable, John persisted, "Whatever's on that phone is more than just pictures."

"Yes, it is." Sherlock's answer was cryptic, as if warning John not to dig any deeper. He turned a key, tuning the violin a bit. John watched. The conversation overheard in Battersea felt like it was ages ago, but he needed to know.

"So, she's alive then. How are  _we_  feeling about that?"

On the radio, Big Ben started to toll the hour.

Sherlock took a deep breath and said quietly, "Happy New Year, John."

The doctor knew how  _he_  was feeling about the prospect of the woman still being out there, but he still didn't understand what Sherlock thought about her. He was not prepared to be deflected. "Do you think you'll be seeing her again?"

The brunet turned around, but didn't make eye contact. He flipped his bow in the air and then started to play 'Auld Lang Syne'. John took that as an answer, and sat in his chair. Sherlock returned to the window and continued to play.

After John had finished his drink, he went to bed, knowing that if Sherlock did want to sleep, he'd do so on the sofa. Once the doctor was gone, Sherlock fished out his phone and sent a text message:

**12.37am Happy New Year SH**


	33. Epilogue

Moriarty sat sprawled in the White leather recliner chair. The lights were off in the flat. He was on his own. When Moran had returned earlier to tell his sorry tale, Jim told the sniper that if he didn't leave immediately, then he would be leaving in a pine box. The trashed living room now around him had borne the brunt of his anger. The rage that had filled him for a full half hour had nearly resulted in him putting a bullet into the man's head. Not a good way to end one year and start another, no, not at all. And the evening had started out so promisingly….

oOo

"Take a look at this, boss!" Moran's excitement was telegraphed in his tone, so Jim put down the newspaper and padded over to where the sniper was looking at his laptop. The Irishman enjoyed the feel of the white deep-pile carpet on his bare feet. While the rest of London was locked down for a New Year's Eve freeze, he had turned up the heat and was lounging in silk pyjamas, planning a quiet night in to drink a very expensive bottle of wine to celebrate the successes of the past year.

He looked over the blond man's shoulder as he rewound the footage and started it again, showing a familiar scene of Baker Street's living room. The sniper smirked. "Still moping, I see." Sherlock was dressed but playing sad music on his violin. Then John came on camera, and they talked about a fault on John's blog. Then Jim watched as Sherlock pulled a phone out of his dressing phone and started keying something in.

Jim drew in a sharp gasp, "Holy Mary, Mother and Saint Michael- that's Ireenee's phone." His amazement was total. "How the hell did he get THAT?!"

Moran shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe it was removed from the body before it got shifted. I checked the morgue records; it wasn't with her effects. Milverton's bodyguards were pretty thorough at bashing her about, so I just assumed they got it off her."

Jim scowled at the blond. "You  _assumed."_ His voice dripped sarcasm. "Well, I don't give a damn how he got it, but now I want it. You may have  _assumed_  that the MOD code died with her, but I  _assume_  nothing- it might still be on that phone. Get that CIA chappie on the case, will you? No mistakes this time, just tell him not to damage the goods. I don't care what he does to other people, but I want the phone and Holmes intact."

As soon as Moran left, Jim returned to the screen. He was watching as Sherlock suddenly turned away from the window, put the violin down and threw off his robe. Jim groaned at the sound of shod feet going down the stairs.  _Just my luck, he's going to be out when the CIA man calls in. Shame that, I would have liked to have seen the look on his face when the phone was taken from him._

When the American did show up, he was with two rent-a-thugs, and they dragged the old lady into the room. She was crying and shouting at them to "leave off" before she was unceremoniously dumped on the sofa. Nielson threatened her with his gun. "I'll ask again, where is the phone?"

She sobbed, "What phone? I don't know what you are talking about. I'm just his landlady, not his housekeeper. I don't know anything about a phone- wouldn't he take a phone with him?" She looked imploringly at him, tears running down her cheeks.

For a moment, Jim started laughing, and then shouted in a pantomime voice: "it's behind you!" Of course, he had no way to contact the CIA operative to tell him that the phone was in the pocket of the dressing gown that Sherlock had thrown onto the sofa. Moriarty never worked directly with a dark angel; Moran did all the dirty work with him. Presumably, he had the contact details, so Jim grabbed his own phone and hit speed-dial.

And went straight to voice mail: "The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone."  _Shite. Where's the bugger when you really need him?_  He left a message- "Call now, or call the undertaker for an advanced booking; you choose."

Then Holmes showed up, and talked Nielson into sending the two men away.  _Oh, you American eejit. You still underestimate him, after what happened the last time?_ He could have choreographed the next scene, the enticing opportunity to pat the brunet down, the spray in the eyes, the head-butt and then the tables being turned with the CIA man now trussed up and gagged. _Send an eejit to do a man's job, and what do you get?_ Jim was almost writhing in irritation. A little chant started in the back of his head,  _Moran- I'll slap that supercilious grin off your face; Tiger- you're a fool with concrete between your ears;_   _Seb- I'll whip you myself with her riding crop for wasting this opportunity; Eejit- you are toast._

After the doctor showed up, there was a brief moment when Jim enjoyed the sight of Sherlock hoisting a helpless American out of the chair and bundling him into the hall. Off camera, Jim heard the sound of tape being pulled off, and a gasp of pain, then scuffles and a yell. He smirked.  _Serves the bloody Yank right_. He was surprised the next time, and giggling the third time at the clatter of someone being dragged up the stairs, a brief appearance of an increasingly bedraggled agent, before he was escorted down the hall again for yet another defenestration. Then an endless parade of police and government types became boring and he turned away from the screen.

Still no call from Moran. On the one hand, Moriarty was actually thrilled to see that his opponent seemed back to full capacity to challenge him. On the other hand, he was going to kick the shite out of Moran for leaving him in this position. With Adler out of the way, now it was time to re-think how to get Mycroft to play. Having missed this opportunity to get the phone, he had no doubt that Sherlock would bury it somewhere deep. Anyway, neither he nor Sherlock had the password to the phone, and if The Woman was to be believed, then the data on it would be destroyed if it was tampered with. And who knows where that blasted MOD code was- quite possibly lost in that bashed up head on a slab in Barts' morgue.  _We're back to stalemate, Sherlock. I will have to figure another way to burn the heart out of you. Game on, Sherlock. Can't wait…_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: As ever, I live for reviews, so please be enticed to fill that little box below.
> 
> The Scandal in Belgravia episode didn't end here, but it did take six months before Irene's return. The next story in the Game Theory series is called Level Up, and then there is Fallen Angel- but I won't start posting these until Christmas. 
> 
> I will be using the gap to start the Ao3 transfer of Got My Eye on You- a series that focuses on Lestrade's POV. it is the most popular of my stories on Fan Fiction, so I hope it proves to be so for those on Ao3 as well. For those of you who have read it on FF, I am re-arranging the order of the stories a bit, and also polishing it up.


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